AN INTEODUCTION 
TO WORLD POLITICS 



THE CEXTUKY 
POLITICAL SCIENCE SERIES 

Edited by 

FEEDEEIC A. OGG 

University of Wisconsin 



iNTRODrcnoN TO AiiEBicAX GovEKXiiEXT. By Frederic 
A. Ogg, UniTersity of WiscoiLsiii; and P. Orman 
Eay, Xorth.'westerii Unirersity. 

AiiEEiCAX Parties axd Elections. By Edward ]!kl. 
Salt, "Cnivexsity of California. 

State Goveexmen-t in the Tnitzd States. By "Walter 
F. Dodd, Chicago, Illinois. 

Municipal GovERXiiENT. By Thomas H. Eeed, Uni- 
versity of California. 

CONSTITTTIONAL LaTV OF THE UNITED STATES. By Ed- 

■nard S. Cor-«dn, Princeton University. 

Constitutional History or the United States. By 
Andrevr C. McLaughlin, University of Chicago. 

The Conduct of American Foreign Eelations. By 
John M. Mathe'ws, University of Illinois. 

Outlines of VTorld Politics. By Herbert Adams Gib- 
bons, Princeton, Xe"n" Jersey. 

European Diplojiacy, 1914-1921. By Charles Seymour, 
Yale University. 

Introduction to the Study of International Cte- 
GANIZATION. By Pitman B. Potter, University of 
Wisconsin. 

American Interests and Policies in the Fab East. 
By Stanley K. Hornbeck, Washington, D. C. 

Latin America and the United States. By Graham 
H. Stuart, University of Wisconsin. 

Eecent and Contemporary Political Theory. By 
Francis W. Coker, Ohio State L^niversity. 

Elements of International Law. By Charles G. Fen- 
wick, Bryn Mawx College. 



Other volumes to he arranged 



V 



AN INTRODUCTION 
TO WORLD POLITICS 



BY 

HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 

Ph,D., LITT.D., F.E.HIST.S. 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1922 



•G\5 



CopyrigM, 1922. by 

Ths Cz:rrT3T Co. 



^ 


^ c c 


PriniEd in U. S. A. 


JUN 28 !922 


OC1.A674741 



13^' 



PREFACE 

At the beginning of the World War I wrote a book about 
the relations among the great powers during the years 
immediately preceding the assassination at Serajevo. * ' The 
New Map of Europe ' ' dealt particularly with Near Eastern 
problems and wars and with the foreign policies of Eussia, 
Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy in the events affect- 
ing the Balkan States, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and the 
countries on the African littoral of the Mediterranean. 
The purpose of the book was to attempt to explain how the 
relations among the great powers were vitally influenced 
by the conflict of interests that arose in their diplomatic 
and economic activities in the regions formerly under the 
ex-clusive domination of the Ottoman sultans. The recep- 
tion accorded ''The New Map of Europe" encouraged me 
4o. complete the survey of contemporary international rela- 
tions by writing ''The New Map of Africa" in 1916 and 
"The New Map of Asia" in 1919. The latter two volumes 
outlined the development of European overlordship in 
Africa and Asia. 

None who lived in daily contact with international ques- 
tions, and who was reporting from the spot wars and 
rumors of wars during the decade before 1914, could be 
satisfied with the prevalent idea that it was unnecessary to 
go farther back than the famous "twelve days" of diplo- 
matic correspondence, from July 20 to August 2, 1914, to 
settle the responsibility for the World War. However 
great the guilt of the Imperial German and Austro-Hun- 
garian governments for deliberately forcing the war upon 
Europe, their power was not so great that their will alone 
could have led us into the calamities of 1914-18. The most 



•vi PREFACE 

bitter and nnthinMng partizan of armistice and peace con- 
ference days sees now that the elimination of Germany 
and Austria-Hungary from world politics has not brought 
us peace. Europe is still in arms, and the victorious 
powers are pitted against one another in the Near East 
and the Far East. Must we not admit, then, that Realpolitih 
and Weltpolitik are human, and not simply German, phe- 
nomena, and that they call for attention no less after our 
victory than before the war? 

This is the justification for the study of world politics 
as a separate branch of political science. Anthropologists 
write of race; geographers of climate; economists of 
finance and trade and commerce ; demographers of popula- 
tion; sociologists of living conditions; missionaries of 
cultural conquest in the name of religion; jurists of inter- 
national law; diplomatists of the technique of dealings 
among nations ; military experts of the conduct of wars and 
the role of armies and navies in peace and war ; statesmen 
of the immediate and ostensible causes of war and aims of 
peace; propagandists of national movements and particu- 
lar interests; humanists of improving world conditions; 
publicists of current events; and general historians set 
forth and interpret the activities of nations comprehen- 
sively, stressing political evolution and states of mind as 
well as recording events. Up to the nineteenth century the 
specialist in international relations is not needed. But 
since the birth of nationalism, the use of steam in produc- 
tion and transportation, and the consequent rise of world 
powers, he has a field of his own. 

The field is difficult, however, because the problems dis- 
cussed and the questions raised have been the storm center 
of men's thoughts for the past ten years. These problems 
have been approached unintelligently, and opinions have 
been formed without knowledge. Teachers of the historical 
and political sciences in American universities and colleges 
have had a curious experience. Their colleagues in other 



PREFACE vii 

departments would be astounded if professors of history 
and political science should presume to lay down the law 
to them in their particular fields. And yet professors of 
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, languages, engineer- 
ing, chemistry, medicine, theology, and law have written 
books and articles and have lectured on problems of world 
pohtics, without having acquainted themselves with even 
the rudiments of the subject. An architect, who has created 
masterpieces, told me one day that a lecture I gave on 
African colonization was wrong from beginning to end. 
He could contradict none of my facts, and when I pressed 
him he confessed that he had never read a book on the 
extension of European control over Africa. ''But I have 
been in Algiers," he declared. "And I have been in a 
Gothic cathedral," I answered; ''but what would you think 
of me if I contested, without any supporting facts, your 
statements in a lecture on Gothic architecture?" 

In attempting to put within the compass of one volume 
an introduction to world politics, it has been necessary to 
omit much of interest and importance, and to exclude, 
except where clearness demanded it, historical narrative. 
The writer confesses frankly that his sympathies are with 
the smaller nations in their struggles to maintain or win 
independence, and that he believes it is possible to use "one 
weight and one measure" in international relations. But 
he has tried to allow the facts to speak for themselves, and 
urges the reader to do the supplementary reading indi- 
cated for each chapter. Eeferences have been given, not 
as sources, but as guides to further information. In select- 
ing them different points of view and the general avail- 
ability of materials have been taken into consideration. 
Some books, excellent as sources, are not widely circulated, 
or are not written in the condensed form demanded by the 
general reader or student. When used as a text-book, the 
chapters are intended to acquaint the student with the 
skeleton facts upon which the lectures are based, to amplify 



viii PREFACE 

the lectures on certain points, and, above all, to provoke 
discussion. In the advanced study of political science no 
text-book can take the place of lectures and class-room 
quizzes and comment on assigned reading. 

If British statesmanship and officialdom come in for a 
larger share of criticism in a course on world poHtics than 
those of other great powers, it is only because Great Britain 
is more involved overseas than any other power. I am of 
pure British stock, and am an intense admirer of the civili- 
zation and culture that are my heritage. My point of view 
is in no sense anti-British. In fact, it is peculiarly Anglo- 
Saxon. F^om our ancestors we have learned to lean back- 
ward in our desire to be fair to the other man and to put 
ourselves in his place. The most precious English intel- 
lectual tradition is to write with detachment and impar- 
tiality. In the atmosphere of passion and prejudice born 
of the war many of us departed from our moorings. But 
we are finding ourselves again. Facing facts and holding 
to common ideals of hberty and justice are the bases of 
Anglo-Saxon solidarity. 

I can not adequately express my appreciation of the 
help and light in the preparation of this volume that have 
come to me from unknown friends in many countries. Ever 
since 1914 numerous correspondents have been pointing 
out to me errors of fact, or have entered into stimulating 
and suggestive discussion provoked by statements in my 
books and magazine articles. All this has been grist to my 
mill. My friends in American, British, and French universi- 
ties have given me encouragement and equally helpful 
criticism and admonition. The opportunities for personal 
investigation in different parts of the world have been en- 
joyed through the constant and generous interest of the 
late James Gordon Bennett and of Mr. Rodman Wana- 
maker. Professor William Starr Myers, of Princeton Uni- 
versity, and my brother. Professor Oliphant Gibbons, of the 
Buffalo Technical High School, read the manuscript. Pro- 



PREFACE ix 

f essor Frederic Austin Ogg, of the University of Wisconsin, 
has edited manuscript and proofs with a thoroughness for 
which I can not express too highly my admiration and 
thanks. My publishers have shown the interest and care 
that long years of happy association have taught me to 
expect from them. 

Herbeet Adams Gibbofs 
Princeton, May 1, 1922 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PASB 

I The Beginnings of World Politics 3 

II Nationalism and Steam Power (1789-1848) ... 17 

III The Rise of World Powers (1848-1878) .... 30 

IV French Colonial Expansion (1830-1900) .... 52 

V British Colonial Expansion (1815-1878) .... 65 

VI Consolidation of British Power in the Near East 

(1878-1885) 83 

VII The Near Eastern Question (1879-1908) ... 96 

VIII Russian Colonial Expansion (1829-1878) .... 113 

IX Consolidation of Russian Power in the Far East 

(1879-1903) 122 

X^Japan's First Challenge to Europe : The War with 
^ China (1894-1895) 130 

XI The Attempt to Partition China (1895-1902) . . . 139 

XII^ Japan's Second Challenge to Europe : The War 
^ WITH Russia (1904-1^)05) 158 

XIII The Revival of British Imperialism (1895-1902) . 166 

XIV Persia and the Anglo-Russian Agreement op 1907 178 

XV Egypt, Morocco, and the Anglo-French Agreement 

op 1904 185 

XVI The Development of the German Weltpolitik (1883- 

1905) 195 

XVII The Franco-German Dispute Over Morocco (1905- 

1911) 207 

XVIII The Young Turk Revolution and Its Reactions 

(1908-1911) 219 

XIX Italian Expansion in Africa (1882-1911) .... 228 

XX The Reopening of the Near Eastern Question by 

Italy (1911-1912) 236 

xi 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAQB 

XXI Intkigues of the Great Powers in the Balkans 

(1903-1912) 246 

XXII The Balkan War Against Turkey (1912-1913) . . 254 

XXIII The Balkan Tangle (1913-1914) 261 

XXIV The Triple Entente Against the Central Empires 

(1914) 272 

XXV Italy's Entrance into the Triple Entente (1915) . 283 

XXVI The Alinement of the Balkan States in the Elt?o- 

PEAN War (1914-1917) 294 

XXVII China as a Republic (1906-1917) 305 

XXVIII Japan's Third Challenge to Europe : The War with 
Germany and the Twenty-one Demands on 
China (1914-1916) 318 

XXIX The United States in World Politics (1893-1917) 328 

XXX The United States and the Latin-American Eepl^b- 

Lics (1893-1917) 340 

XXXI The United States in the Coalition Against the 

Central Empires (1917-1918) 358 

XXXII The Disintegration of the Romanoff, Hapsburg. and 
Ottoman Empires through Self-Determination 
Propaganda (1917-1918) 367 

XXXIII The Attempt to Create a League op Nations at Paris 

After the Defeat op Germany (1919) .... 381 

XXXIV The Refusal op the United States to Ratify the 

Treaties and Enter the League (1919-1921) . . 390 

XXXV World Politics and the Treaty op Versailles (1919- 

1922) 399 

XXXVI World Politics and the Treaty op St. Gerjiain 

(1919-1922) 407 

XXXVII World Politics and the Treaty op Trianon (1919- 

1922) 416 

XXXVIII World Politics and the Treaty op Neuilly (1919- 

1922) 422 

XXXIX World Politics and the Treat\' op Sevres (1920-1922) 428 

XL The Reestablishment of Peace Prevhented by Un- 
satisfied Nationalist Aspirations and Divergent 
Policies op the Victors (1918-1922) .... 442 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XLI The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath (1917- 

1922) 457 

XLII Overseas Possessions of "Secondary States" (1815- 

1922) 474 

XLIII French Colonial Problems (1901-1922) .... 483 

XLIV British Imperial Problems (1903-1922) .... 494 

XLV The Foreign Policy of Post-Bellum Japan (1919- 

1922) 514 

XLVI The Place of the United States in the World 

(1920-1922) 522 

XLVII Bases op Solidarity Among English-Speaking 

Peoples (1922) 535 

XLVIII The Continuation Conferences: From London to 

Genoa (1919-1922) 548 

XLIX The Washington Conference and the Limitation of 

Armaments (1921-1922) 561 

Bibliography 577 

Index ..: 589 



MAPS 

FACING PAGE 

Asia at the End of the World War Title 

Africa about 1850 . 30 

The Spoliation of an Asiatic State : Siam before 1893 and after 

1910 60 

The Great Powers in China 142 

FfeENCH Cessions to Germany in the Congo : 1912 218 

The Balkan Peninsula in 1914 268 

Africa in 1914 404 

The Stepping Stones from Asia to Australia 516 



AN INTRODUCTION TO 
WORLD POLITICS 

CHAPTER I 

THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 

WHEN political organisms were small and conmmni- 
ties self-sustaining, problems of government were 
not complicated by considerations of foreign policy. At 
first, travelers were killed and their possessions confiscated, 
unless they were stronger than those they met. On sea, 
men took their chances with pirates as with the weather. 
Until means of transportation and a guaranty of protec- 
tion were furnished them, few traveled in inland countries. 
None traveled for pleasure, and the quest of knowledge or 
gold was attended by great and constant risks. Later, 
when means of transportation increased and regular routes 
were established, travelers purchased protection by paying 
tribute to the strong. And strength was not so much a 
matter of numbers and of fighting ability as of geographical 
position. Consequently, there was virtually no intercourse, 
social or commercial, between peoples of different blood, 
language, customs, and religion. 

Before the Christian era the history of "civilization," 
as we understand that term, was developed in Mediterra- 
nean lands. There the three monotheistic religions origi- 
nated and spread, and there the cultures, the written lan- 
guages, and the social and political background of modem. 
Europe were created. The Egyptians and Chaldeans and 

3 



4 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Assyrians did not go far afield in their wars. The Persians 
and Greeks invaded each other's countries mainly as ad- 
venturous explorers. The Phoenicians and Greeks traded 
in the Mediterranean and founded colonies without the 
urge of a united racial impulse behind them. Rome did 
not allow Carthage to become a consohdated empire; and 
the Greeks, like the Italians of the Middle Ages, instead of 
standing together in their expansion, exhausted their ener- 
gies in fighting each other. Although the Romans colo- 
nized, it was rather by taking aliens into partnership and 
by organizing a governmental system than by making their 
own race dominant. The Roman Empire was not conceived 
in the spirit of ruling the world for the benefit of the Italian 
peninsula. "When they conquered the Greeks, the Romans 
succumbed to Greek culture, and as the empire grew, Rome 
itself did not remain the political, much less the economic, 
metropolis. There never was a Roman race in the sense 
that there was a Greek race and later an Arab race. 

The Roman Empire had neither geographical entity nor 
national foyer. Rome did not mean a place from which a 
race had come and which was the heart of the nation. Pos- 
sessing no common economic interests and no consciousness 
of oneness of blood, the peoples of the Roman Empire were 
easily weakened by, and then fell prey to, the migrating 
peoples of Europe and Asia. Our Teutonic ancestors col- 
onized Europe by subjugating and becoming assinailated 
with, if not by actually exterminating, the indigenous in- 
habitants. As soon as new political organisms took the 
place of the defunct Eastern and Western empires, migra- 
tion ceased. Whole races no longer passed from Asia to 
Europe or from one part of Europe to another. In the 
medieval period of European history, migratory conquests 
ended in every part of the continent simultaneously ^vith 
the appearance of stable centralized governments. This 
was accompUshed just in time to stem Mongolian and Semi- 
tic invaders, who attempted a new migration. Only the 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 5 

Balkans, parts of Russia, and northern Africa passed un- 
der the domination of the later Asiatics. 

But our ancestors, once they had settled in their new 
homes, still found causes for war. On the surface the wars 
were feudal, religious, dynastic; underneath was the con- 
flict among large national groups in the process of forma- 
tion. Leaders and peoples were instruments of irresistible 
currents of whose very existence they did not know. Placed 
within certain geographic limits and welded into groups by 
the growth of common economic interests, Europeans 
evolved different languages and characteristics, and thus 
became separate nationaUties. Except in a few specific 
instances of borderlands, national evolution was more rapid 
and more thorough in western Europe than in central and 
eastern Europe. 

To illustrate, a Scotchman or a Welshman may retain 
his pride in his blood and perhaps in his language, but he 
long ago became a Britisher by every instinct in his being. 
Proximity, development of intercourse, political equality 
with the once dominant Englishman, and, above all, equal 
economic opportunities accomplished this. The Irishman, 
on the contrary, separated by water from other Britishers, 
and as potently by different cultural and religious ideals, 
held in economic and poUtical subjection to the dominant 
Englishman by means of a land-owning alien element and 
by the descendants of a colony of alien conquerors in one 
corner of the island, remained unassimilated. A Breton or 
a Provengal can be proud of his origin and can cherish the 
cult of his language and his local customs, but he is none 
the less a good Frenchman. The Breton is isolated on his 
peninsula from other than French influences. The Proven- 
cal is cut off by mountains from any other race that might 
have influenced his national self -consciousness. In this way 
geography has played the most important role in assimi- 
lation. 

Border peoples in central and eastern Europe were 



6 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

worked upon by, and became successively subjects of, rival 
national groups. In eastern Europe, where the conquerors 
were in the minority and of the ruling class, little attempt 
was made at assimilation through education or through the 
creation of economic interests in common and mutually 
realized between the conquered people and the dominant 
alien invaders. Long after the peoples of western Europe 
and, to a lesser extent, those of central Europe were freed 
from the menace of migratory invasions, and had been left 
to themselves to develop their civilization, the peoples of 
eastern Europe remained under Mohammedan rule or con- 
tinued to be subjected to recurrent Tartar invasions. An- 
other disruptive influence, which has persisted through the 
centuries and has formed a barrier from the Baltic to the 
Adriatic between peoples whose common blood and lan- 
guage would othermse have caused them to develop a com- 
mon nationality, has been the division of allegiance be- 
tween the Roman and the Orthodox churches. Of the two 
most powerful branches of the Slavs, Poles looked to Rome 
and Russians to Constantinople. The LTj:rainians were 
divided, and Serbians were separated from Croats and 
Slovenes. 

Early in the history of modern Europe, international 
relations became important from an economic, as well as a 
political, point of view. Commerce led to the establishment 
of traditions and customs in the dealings among nations. 
These were embodied in diplomacy and international law. 
Treaties of friendship and commerce were sought as a 
means of reciprocally guaranteeing the interests of na- 
tionals. When migratory conquests ceased, when religious 
and djTiastic wars ended, when nationaUst movements 
reached and accepted the limits imposed upon them by ge- 
ography and economics, it was reasonable to suppose that 
the state of peace attained ^vithin the great political organ- 
isms might be extended to the European community of 
nations. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 7 

But when Europeans began to trade overseas, and estab- 
lished colonies and companies for exploiting newly discov- 
ered regions of the world, competition gave rise to friction 
that would not have existed had the European nations been 
able to continue to find sources of prosperity within the 
borders of their own political jurisdictions. Wars broke 
out among Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and 
French, which, although provoked by religious and dynastic 
questions of European origin, were complicated, extended, 
and prolonged because of the interests and ambitions of 
their governments and private companies in America and 
Asia. And the gains and losses to victors and vanquished 
have proved to be permanent, and have influenced the 
course of history more by the transfer of territories and 
privileges outside Europe than by boundary changes in 
Europe. That this is true is largely the result of develop- 
ments of the nineteenth century. As long as sovereigns and 
governments fought, with mercenaries, for prizes of whose 
value the contending peoples were dimly if at all aware, 
extra-European rivalry and colonial wars did not have a 
profound influence upon the relations between the Euro- 
pean peoples. A great change, however, began to take 
place during the Napoleonic era. 

The rapid increase of population in Europe, with the ac- 
companying over-production of manufactured articles and 
over-consumption of raw materials, radically changed in- 
ternational relations. Each nation felt compelled to shape 
its foreign policy according to the opportunities and neces- 
sities of acquiring beyond the confines of Europe areas for 
colonization and new markets. This situation, unique in 
history because the conditions that created it have not be- 
fore existed, gave rise to a new branch of political science — 
world politics. 

World politics is the science of government as practised 
in international relations, under the influence of real or 
fancied interests in other than neighboring countries or 



8 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

those "vrith which relations of reciprocal advantage are nat- 
urally maintained. All nations, for their security and ma- 
terial and moral well-being, can not detach their domestic 
policies from those of nations near them and with whom 
they do business. But when they become friends or ene- 
mies because of rivalry for political influence and economic 
advantages in regions where their aim is to enjoy, exclu- 
sively if possible, the fruits of economic imperiahsm, 
friends and enemies are made, not by natural affinities or 
by good or e\al done to each other, but by considerations 
of world politics. 

It is not impossible to build up a thesis for the beginnings 
of world politics in the struggle of Syria and Egy^t over 
Syria and Palestine, of Greece and Persia over Asia Minor, 
of Athens and Sparta over Sicily, of Rome and Carthage 
over Spain and the hegemony of the Mediterranean, and, 
since the era of overseas exploration, in the wars of the 
original maritime and colonial powers. But before the 
nineteenth century world poUtics had comparatively slight 
influence upon international relations. It was the intro- 
duction of steam power into industry that made overseas 
markets profitable, and then indispensable, to European 
nations. The use of steam power in transportation made 
it possible to carry manufactured articles to foreign mar- 
kets on a large scale and to fetch raw materials and food- 
stuffs. To the European nations prosperity began to be 
dependent upon a new world-wide division of labor, in 
which the roles of manufacturer, merchant, banker, and 
carrier were played by the European peoples. 

While one may claim that international relations have 
always been affected by outside interests and ambitions, 
it was not until the nineteenth century that Europe began 
to exploit the rest of the world. This exploitation is a 
cause as much as a result of surplus population and capital. 
The industrial nations, finding, maintaining, and develop- 
ing new markets, at the same time exported the population 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 9 

and the capital that was, in part at least, due to this exploi- 
tation. European nations came more and more to vie with 
one another for exclusive political control of colonizing 
areas where white men could live. To make secure the hold 
on colonies already acquired, fortified ports of call were 
needed. Hinterland and islands were annexed, in addition, 
to protect the ports of call or to prevent other nations from 
installing themselves in near-by vantage-points. Colonies 
and protectorates, in turn, began to create a demand for 
goods and to become profitable fields for investment. This 
wealth had to be guarded ; and, as there was no disposition 
to share with other nations, defense of the sources of wealth 
began to be a heavy tax upon those who had accumulated it. 

Unless we have in mind the colonial situation in 1815, we 
can not rightly estimate the foreign policies of European 
peoples, and of the United States and Japan as well, since 
the rise of nationalism and steam power. We must know 
also how each of the European nations won and lost over- 
seas possessions up to that time. 

At the opening of the modern age, the Italians were the 
foremost international bankers, traders, explorers, travel- 
ers, and geographers. Italian princelings ruled over states 
in the Greek peninsula, and the Italian city-states controlled 
the trade of the Adriatic, JEgean, and eastern Mediter- 
ranean. But the Italians were not yet on the road to politi- 
cal unity. They fought one another up to the point of 
depleting their maritime strength; and, even after the 
Ottoman Turks began to war on Christendom, the Italians 
continued to undermine one another. The Turks conquered 
the Balkans, the ^gean islands, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, 
and gradually extended their power around the Black Sea 
and across northern Africa. The Mediterranean became 
and remained for several centuries an unsafe and unprofit- 
able sea for Europeans. But half a century after the fall 
of Constantinople the period of world discovery and colo- 
nization began. The people who gave birth to Christopher 



10 AX INTRODUCTION TO ^OELD POLITICS 

Columbus and many other intrepid and successful navi- 
gators had no part, except as individuals, in the expansion 
of Europe overseas, and their last city-state, Venice, was 
put out of existence by the treaty of Campo-Formio in 
1797. 

The Scandinavians, also, vrere pioneer explorers. But 
their political unity was broken up four years before Co- 
lumbus discovered America. For two hundred years Danes 
and Swedes were engaged in intermittent warfare against 
each other. Sweden, on the whole victorious, attempted 
to play the role of a great power. She, however, did not 
seek an empire outside of Europe, but spent her strength, 
in vain, against the Hohenzollerns and Romanoffs. The 
Norwegians formed a union, on the basis of equaUty, with 
the Danes, which lasted until 1814, when Norway was 
joined to Sweden. Sweden and Norway founded no colo- 
nies. Denmark colonized Iceland, made settlements on the 
coast of Greenland, and took possession of three islands in 
the West Indies— St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. The 
Danish fleet was destroyed by the British at Copenhagen 
in 1807. Denmark never recovered from this blow, and 
she had no part in the colonial expansion of the nineteenth 
century. 

Before the discovery of America and of trade routes to 
the east, the German cities of the'' Hanseatic League formed 
the strongest organization for international commerce. 
But geography and the retarded state of poUtical develop- 
ment in Germany were factors against their success in com- 
petition with the merchants of countries better situated 
from a maritime point of view and more advanced politi- 
cally. The Danish peninsula di^^ded the coast of Germany 
and made a formidable, and generally hostile, barrier to 
egress from the communities. The Holy Roman Empire, 
which yas the loose Germanic bond, did not include all Ger- 
mans and was never interested in the future of the German 
people overseas. The empire lived on until 1806, and at the 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 11 

peace settlements of 1814 and 1815 Prussia and Austria 
had no maritime interests to safeguard and no thought of 
the world beyond the confines of Europe. 

Land-bound Russia could not take part in the discovery 
and development of world trade routes and colonies. Po- 
land struggled unsuccessfully for existence, and, after hav- 
ing been cut off from the sea, disappeared at the end of the 
eighteenth century. Hungary's outlets to the sea were 
controlled by the Turks and the Italians. The Balkan 
States, which were incorporated in the Ottoman Empire 
during the century of the discovery of America, did not 
emerge from bondage until the nineteenth century. Bel- 
gium is a creation of the post-Napoleonic era. 

From the beginning of the expansion of Europe to other 
continents, then, the way was open for the nations of west- 
ern Europe bordering on the Atlantic. Geographical po- 
sition had much to do with the ability of Spain, Portugal, 
France, Great Britain, and Holland to forge ahead of the 
other nations of Europe in their political unification. It 
had everything to do with their ability to follow explora- 
tion by colonization and to preempt the extra-European 
world. In 1815 these five European countries of the Atlan- 
tic coast found their culture, their racial stock, and their 
political control well established in different parts of the 
world. The English, French, and Spanish spoke and spread 
their language and planted their political institutions in 
North America, the Spanish and Portuguese in South 
America, and the Dutch in South Africa. The Dutch, 
the French, and the English had footholds in Guiana 
in South America. All five were established in Africa. 
English, French, and Portuguese were in India, and Dutch 
in Ceylon. The Dutch had planted their flag in most of the 
East Indian islands, and the other four peoples were there 
too. The English had settled in Australia and Tasmania. 
It was a case of first come, first served. 

But those who came first did not in every instance stay. 



12 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Among the five colonizing states there were wars, followed 
by changes of title, some of them of vital importance in 
their influence upon the history of the world. Spain and 
Portugal passed their zenith and became decadent before 
the discovery of steam power. Holland lost the mastery 
of the sea and her choicest colonies. France could not main- 
tain herself against Great Britain in North America and 
India. 

With the exception of Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and 
Florida, which Spain lost before the large movements of 
population from Europe to America, Spain and Portugal 
did not extend their dominions over regions situated in the 
temperate zone. Their colonies were countries to which 
Europeans could not transplant themselves ^\'ithout de- 
terioration of stock. Instead of sending for women of their 
own race, Portuguese and Spaniards mixed their blood with 
natives, and later with negroes introduced from Africa. 
Spaniards and Portuguese went overseas, not to seek and 
estabUsh homes in a new country, but to convert the heathen 
or carry away existing wealth. The Spanish gravitated to 
Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese to India and China and 
Japan, because they discovered in those countries ancient 
ci\^Uzations whose treasures of gold and precious stones, 
of silks and spices, they could seize and carry home. In 
the heyday of their power Spain and Portugal were repre- 
sented in their colonial empires by missionaries and looters, 
not by colonists and traders. They had little to sell to the 
countries they controlled and no intention of settling them 
on a scale that would amount to a migration. Their acqui- 
sitions did not attract the British and French. The Por- 
tuguese were able to hold their colonies by infeodating 
themselves to the English from the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, a relationship that has not been dis- 
turbed in two hundred years. 

With the exception of Louisiana, which passed from 
France to Spain, to France again, and finally to the United 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 13 

States in 1803-04, Spain, although defeated in wars several 
times, managed to retain title to most of her colonies until 
they themselves began to break away from her. 

Colonial rivalry among the other three nations was on a 
different basis. French, Dutch, and British staked out 
territories in the New World for the purpose of active 
colonization, and their claims overlapped. The Dutch 
picked out the best port on the American coast. The 
French, not content with Canada, attempted to extend their 
control over the hinterland of the North American conti- 
nent from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
included in their claims the tributaries of the Mississippi to 
their head-waters. By colonizing the Cape of Good Hope 
and by succeeding the Portuguese in Ceylon, the Dutch 
made a bid for control of the trade routes to the Far East 
and India. The French challenged the British in India. 

From Louis XIV to Napoleon I, the wars by which Great 
Britain acquired all of France 's colonial empire and a por- 
tion of Holland's arose from causes within Europe. The 
extension of these wars to other parts of the world was in- 
cidental,^ and the colonial advance of Great Britain, marked 
by the successive treaties, can not be regarded as the ful- 
filment of plans and hopes of statesmen. Men of the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries could not have realized 
what these gains were to mean to the British Empire. Ex- 
ceptions to this general statement, however, may be taken 
in regard to the conquest of New Amsterdam in 1665, and 
to the fighting in India between the British and the French. 

During the Napoleonic wars the British began to think 
of the advantages of a victorious peace in consolidating and 

* The wars between the British and French in America were provoked and 
terminated by causes arising in Europe, with the exception of the final struggle 
that eliminated France from the Ohio Valley and Canada. The French and 
Indian War (1754-63) differed from King William's War (1689-97), Qiieen 
Anne's War (1701-13), and King George's War (1744-48) in that the first 
fighting, and also the battles that decided the American issues of the war, oc- 
curred on American soil. However, the Seven Years' War, as it was known in 
Europe, powerfully influenced the fortunes of the fighting in America, and in a 
very real sense contributed to the disappearance of French power in America. 



14 AN INTRODUCTION TO TVORLD POLITICS 

adding to the empire that was being built up throughout 
the world. The contemptuous reference of Napoleon to the 
British as "a nation of shopkeepers" proves that during 
the upheaval at the beginning of the nineteenth century con- 
siderations of world pohtics were entering into European 
diplomacy. World politics certainly influenced British 
naval and military activities, while continental European 
nations were devoting their undivided energies to keeping 
Napoleon in check. By the peace of Amiens, in 1802, Great 
Britain gave back to France and her allies a number of 
choice morsels that her enterprising naval officers and over- 
seas expeditions had picked up, with the exception of Trini- 
dad, ceded to her by Spain, and Ceylon, taken from Holland. 

The battle of Trafalgar, in 1805, broke forever the sea 
power of France and Spain, and gave Great Britain a free 
hand, as far as these two countries were concerned, in the 
extra-European world. Never since that day have Spain 
and France been able to make effective resistance to the 
extension of British colonial power. The events of the last 
ten years of the Napoleonic regime played squarely into the 
hands of British colonial aspirations. Denmark and Hol- 
land were forced to ally themselves vdth France: so the 
British seized the Cape of Good Hope and the northern 
parts of Dutch Guiana permanently and destroyed the Dan- 
ish fleet. Spain, although as un^^dlling an ally of France as 
other European states after 1808, suffered as much abroad 
as if she had been waging war voluntarily. Portugal saved 
her colonies by the flight of the royal family to Brazil, and 
by a refusal to submit to the French. The British natu- 
rally refrained from operations against African and Asiatic 
territories of the country that was a valuable and friendly 
base for them in the Peninsular War. 

After the battle of Wagram, in 1809, Napoleon was at 
the height of his power in Europe. He was impotent, how- 
ever, on soa; and in that one year Cayenne, Martinique, 
Senegal, and Santo Domingo were lost, and in the follow- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD POLITICS 15 

ing year Guadeloupe, Isle Bourbon, and He de France. In 
1811 the British occupied Java. 

During the Napoleonic wars the British greatly extended 
their dominions in India under Lord Cornwallis and Sir 
Arthur Wellesley (afterward Duke of Wellington). While 
the Congress of Vienna was debating, the British were fight- 
ing a war with the Ghurkas of Nepal, and the last Mah- 
ratta war took place in 1817-18. The beginning of Great 
Britain's west African empire was the elevation of Sierra 
Leone to the rank of crown colony in 1808, and the fighting 
with the French over Senegal and Gambia. After the set- 
tlements following the collapse of Napoleon, the British on 
the west coast founded Bathurst in 1816. When the Brit- 
ish took the Cape of Good Hope they decided to get a foot- 
hold on the coast of South America opposite the Falkland 
Islands, where they had acquired title by agreement with 
Spain in 1771, but had never colonized. This would give 
them control of the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
even as the Cape of Good Hope controlled the passage from 
the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and Gibraltar dominated 
the strait leading from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. 
An expedition from the Cape of Good Hope landed in the 
River Plata in June, 1806, and captured Buenos Aires. The 
inhabitants were required to swear allegiance to George III. 
The Spaniards demanded independence from all and any 
European sovereignty, and, when it was refused them, na- 
tives and Spaniards together revolted and compelled the 
British to surrender. Reinforcements arrived in 1807, took 
Montevideo by assault, and marched on Buenos Aires. Al- 
though the British had a large force and were well sup- 
ported by the fleet, their generals lacked courage and re- 
sourcefulness. They got into a muddle and surrendered, 
promising to evacuate the territory of Buenos Aires and 
Montevideo as well. No new expedition was sent, and thus 
the opportunity was missed to gain in South America what 
had been gained in every other continent. 



16 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

The transfers of title in the world outside of Europe 
from the middle of the seventeenth century to the end of 
the Napoleonic period came to be of great importance in the 
nineteenth century and influenced profoundly the rela- 
tions among European nations from the act of Vienna 
(1815) to the treaty of Versailles (1919). We have not 
space to go into the details of the treaties of Breda (1667) ; 
Madrid (1670); Ryswick (1697); Utrecht (1713); Seville 
(1729); Vienna (1731); Aix-la-Chapelle (1748); Paris 
(1763) ; and Amiens (1802). But it must not be forgotten 
that in them we find the beginnings of world politics. 



CHAPTER n 

NATIONALISM AND STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 

THE conception of racial or national supremacy, based 
upon cultural superiority and military and financial 
mastery, originated during the French Revolution and the 
Napoleonic wars, and was developed during the period from 
1815 to 1848, coincident with the birth of the sense of 
nationality in Europe and the introduction of steam power 
into industry and transportation. 

There is wide difference of opinion among scholars as to 
the period in the development of nations when the phenome- 
non of national self-consciousness can first be discerned. 
Some historians go back in Spain to Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella; in England, to Henry VIII and Wolsey, to Eliza- 
beth and the Spanish Armada, or to the fall of the house 
of Stuart; in France, to Joan of Arc and Charles VII, or 
Henri IV and the Guises; in Holland, to John of Barne- 
veld ; in Sweden, to Gustavus Vasa. It is generally agreed 
that national self-consciousness did not manifest itself in 
other peoples of Europe until after the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. It is difficult to admit, however, that 
a sense of nationality was in more than an embryonic state 
in any country before the people gained the responsibilities 
and privileges of citizenship. In Great Britain, as else- 
where, the realization of the responsibilities and the ap- 
preciation of the privileges of belonging to this or that 
political group or organization began to dawn upon the 
common people between 1789 and 1815, and became a part 
of their being between 1815 and 1848. 

Before the French Revolution, international conflicts 
did not greatly affect the lives and fortunes of peoples 

17 



18 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

except in the localities that were the fields of battle. Even 
where the fighting took place, destruction was compara- 
tively slight. The armies were small, and composed of 
professional soldiers. Tax levies for armaments were not 
so heavy as for the whims and pleasures of some dissolute 
monarchs. There was not the universal sacrifice involved 
in obligatory military service. The people were, on the 
whole, indifferent to the stakes of war. Victory or defeat 
meant so little that we frequently find nations that were 
enemies one year allied the next. In the century and a 
half preceding the French Revolution, friends changed to 
foes and foes to friends so often that it is difficult to keep 
track of the alhances. The wars were not wars of peoples, 
nor for objects that combatants and tax-payers understood 
and that they kept before their eyes as incentives and com- 
pensations for the effort they were making. Proof of this 
is supplied by contemporary literature. Bitterness of na- 
tion against nation, such as we are familiar mth to-day, 
and concern for victory and for advantageous terms of 
peace, are lacking in chroniclers of current events from 
Pepys to Arthur Young. 

A German king who could speak no English was called to 
the British throne, and he and his successors retained their 
kingdom in Germany. The effort made by Great Britain 
in the American Revolution seems now to have been greatly 
inferior to her resources, as does the effort of France to 
defend Canada in the previous war. Hessian mercenaries 
fought for the British in America, and there was little or 
no compunction in their use. Spain, France, and Great 
Britain did not employ their sea power to make the Medi- 
terranean safe for their nationals against the pirates of the 
north African coast. The inhabitants of the Mediterranean 
littoral of France never expected their king to avenge the 
raids of the Moors. The old French nobility put personal 
and class interest above national feeling to the extent of 
leading foreign armies into their country. 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 19 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man, promulgated at 
Paris on August 27, 1789, was the beginning of a new epoch 
in European history. The pendulum swung to the left and 
then as far to the right, reaction following anarchy. But 
the principles of the Revolution were written into the heart 
of Europe. In every European country democratic evolu- 
tion took the form of national self-consciousness. France 
led the way. When the newly won liberties of the people 
were threatened, foreigners became national enemies. De- 
fense of country was defense of liberty. The battles of 
Valmy and Jemmapes, in 1792, were, on the French side, 
battles of the French people, who fought to keep something 
precious, and were conscious of so fighting. During the next 
twenty years Europe was transformed. Wherever Napoleon 
went with his armies he appealed to peoples against 
their masters. By proclamations and emissaries, he sought 
to capitalize the political and economic situation in the 
countries of his enemies, with a view to weakening their 
resistance to his armies. He told subject races that the hour 
of emancipation from alien rule had struck and admonished 
peasants in economic servitude that the moment was fa- 
vorable to rise up against their oppressors. Some states 
were forced quite against their interests into an alliance 
mth France. For a time Napoleon fished successfully in 
troubled waters. Then his doctrines were turned against 
himself. The teaching was accepted, but not the teacher. 
The spirit of the France of the Revolution, communicated 
by French invaders to other peoples, brought about the 
downfall of the France of the First Empire. The battle of 
Leipzig, in 1813, by which the Sixth Coalition drove Na- 
poleon back into France, was won by young Germans who 
reacted to and gained strength from the new nationalism, 
even as had the French at Valmy and Jemmapes. 

Statesmen become accustomed to the sense of power. Al- 
most invariably the leaders of nations lose in the course 
of time the instinct of guiding with the current of events, 



20 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

which is what gives them their high position. When they 
think that they make the current, and that they are able to 
have things as they want them, the mantle passes from 
their shoulders. The sense of failure that usually comes to 
a man who has given his life to pubhc service is attributed 
by himself and by his admirers to the fickleness of the 
people. The reason, however, is that the leader stops lead- 
ing. He is afraid to follow his vision to the end. He wants 
to consolidate his position. He becomes an advocate of the 
status quo, or even tries to set back the hands of the clock. 
This was the state of mind of the men who drew up the act 
of Vienna in 1815. Ha%dng forced France to return to her 
frontiers of pre-Napoleonic days, and having bargained 
with one another for the spoils of victory, they decided to 
combine their military resources in an effort to prevent 
the peace of the world from being again disturbed. Fron- 
tiers were to remain as they had fixed them, and peoples 
were not to be allowed to change their rulers and political 
institutions. What the French had done during the Revo- 
lution and under Napoleon was an example of the danger 
to the peace of the world arising from subversive doctrines 
and the overthrow of existing forms of government. 

In their consideration of international relations the 
statesmen at Vienna refused to go beneath the surface. 
In their minds, all that was necessary to establish an era 
of good understanding in Europe was common agreement 
among the larger states to preseiwe the status quo, terri- 
torially and politically. The larger states were to avoid 
falhng out with one another by not having any more spoils 
to divide. If each state merely preserved its frontiers, 
the Vienna conception of the balance of power would be 
maintained. If weaker states were bolstered up and new 
political entities not countenanced, causes for conflict would 
be avoided. 

The idea itself was not without merit. To have proposed 
and accepted the principles of conference and cooperation 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 21 

among nations was a distinct step forward. The idea was 
denatured, however, by the limitation of its benefits to a 
favored class in a few favored nations. Its static basis, and 
the fact that Great Britain was already aware of the neces- 
sity of subordinating her continental policy to extra-Euro- 
pean interests, made it impracticable. The Holy Alliance 
of Russia, Prussia, and Austria was expanded to include 
France when it was thought that the Bourbons were defi- 
nitely reestablished on the French throne. Then five suc- 
cessive conferences were held, from 1818 to 1822, at Aix- 
la-Chapelle, Carlsbad, Troppau, Laybach, and Verona, and 
unsuccessful attempts were made by the four powers to 
suppress, through joint military action, the democratic 
movements in Germany and Italy, to maintain the integrity 
of the Ottoman Empire, and to help Spain keep her colonies 
under control. Nationalism and democracy, however, 
working hand in hand and inseparable one from the other, 
were forces that could not be mastered by Metternich and 
his associates. They did not know how to use them. They 
were broken by them. 

Nationalism, powerfully aided by the economic changes 
wrought by steam power, brought about the unification 
of Germany and Italy, the disintegration of the Ottoman 
Empire, and the creation of the Latin American republics. 
With Europe as the point of departure and the chief bene- 
ficiary, the Aryan race reached out for world domination. 
For a hundred years the pickings were fat, and Europe 
multiplied and prospered. But at home the larger coun- 
tries, gradually embittered against one another, in the 
struggle for world markets and raw materials, by the spirit 
of nationalism, drifted into the Armageddon of the World 
War. 

In the decade before the French Eevolution Watt and 
Boulton began the manufacture of steam-engines in Bir- 
mingham. Adoption of the new device for industry did not 
begin radically to affect production until steam power was 



22 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

employed for transportation. The use of steam-driven 
ships began in the second decade, and of steam-engines on 
railways in the third decade, of the nineteenth century. 
Development was rapid. Between 1830 and 1840 railways 
became an important factor in the economic life of Great 
Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States. France 
began to subsidize raihvay construction in 1842, Austria 
in 1838, Prussia and Spain in 1848, Russia in 1850, and 
Portugal in 1853. In south Germany, Italy, and Hungary, 
railway development was slow, o"\ving to the smallness of 
the states. "When it was realized that economic prosperity 
was dependent upon railway construction, and that railway 
construction would not advance without political unity, the 
unification of Germany and Italy w^as assured. The de- 
velopment of railways in Europe between 1825 and 1850 
made possible the rise of industry on a large scale. For the 
railways brought coal and raw materials and distributed 
manufactured articles. Industrial workers were able to 
concentrate and form large centers of population; for 
railways transported them to their work, and carried food- 
stuffs to them. Steamships brought the outlying world into 
touch with Europe, as railways brought the countries of 
Europe into touch one "vsith another. 

Coal and iron became, during the period from 1815 to 
1848, the greatest sources of wealth and military power. 
The science of war w^as transformed as industry and com- 
merce were transformed. And as the two considerations 
underhdng a nation's foreign pohcy are security and pros- 
perity, statesmen had to begin to think in terms of coal and 
iron, of mines and factories, of railways and ships, of cen- 
ters of population and coaling stations, of foreign markets 
and raw" materials and food-stuffs. International relations 
had to be adapted to the new problems of world-wide con- 
tacts. Men could be taught that security and prosperity 
were one and the same thing, and that aggression was no 
longer to be defined in terms of invasion of the territory 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 23 

of one's country or other physical violence, but of attack 
upon rights and privileges secured in any part of the 
world. 

Expansion of the franchise, which gave the mass of the 
people a voice in government, made it necessary to heed 
public opinion. It was from these unfranchised groups who 
labored with steam power that the most insistent demands 
for suffrage came, and the earliest manifestations of public 
intelligence among working-men were in the factory towns. 
The cost of armaments and the payment of war bills had 
to be justified. Equally important, a willingness to fight 
had to be inculcated in the people. This was done by propa- 
ganda, carried on variously through the schools and news- 
papers. A new nineteenth-century interpretation had to 
be given to dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In the 
new game of world politics hereditary enemies might be 
allies, and dying for one's country was to be done mostly 
far from home. Pride and national honor were brought 
to the front in the teaching of patriotism. Ideals of civil- 
ization, *' bearing the white man's burden," were empha- 
sized. 

But if one goes through the arguments advanced in par- 
liamentary assemblies to win support for strong foreign 
policies and for military and naval expenditures, it will be 
seen that statesmen of the era of world politics rely largely 
on the fear and cupidity of their fellow citizens. We must 
defend this or that which we have; we must anticipate 
others seizing this or that ; we must aid this or that country 
to be free, and forbid this or that country to shake off the 
yoke of its oppressor; we must join forces with this or that 
group of powers ; we must extend our sovereignty or sphere 
of influence here or there — even though we have no direct 
cause for occupying this or that territory or for fighting 
this or that nation. Why? Because if we do not we shall 
be attacked, we shall lose our prestige or some possession 
or exclusive interest, and as a result our national security 



24 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

■will be jeopardized, and not only ^-ill our world markets 
not be increased, but we shall end by being done out of them 
altogether. Thus during the nineteenth century did states- 
men argue, and thus arose distrust and enmity among na- 
tions, not in the old fonn of hatred and fighting confined 
to a few people, but as an entirely new sort of animosity, 
nations standing against nations. Looking back over the 
wars of the nineteenth century, we often find nations fight- 
ing, and hatred engendered, over questions in which 
only investors and developers and traders had a direct 
interest. 

During the period under survey the changes in industry, 
transportation, and armaments were still in their infancj^ 
The analysis just given may, therefore, seem an anticipa- 
tion of conditions in the period from 1848 to 1918. But 
it is not. We do not need to come dovra beyond the genera- 
tion immediately following the Congress of Vienna to find 
the spirit of nationalism, full-fledged, at work in interna- 
tional relations. Our illustrations are: the movement for 
independence in Latin America ; the intei'vention of France 
in northern Africa ; the Greek War of Liberation ; and Me- 
hemet AU's secession from the Ottoman Empire. 

When Napoleon invaded Spain, expelled the royal fam- 
ily, and put his brother Joseph on the throne, the Spanish 
colonies in America found the opportunity that many of 
them had long been looking for to follow the example of the 
United States. In 1810 Chile, Uruguay, Colombia (which 
then included Ecuador and Venezuela), Buenos Aires (Ar- 
gentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia), and Mexico revolted. Peru 
followed in 1811. In 1813 Bolivar broke the Spanish power 
in South America by dri\ing the Spaniards from Caracas, 
and Mexico declared her independence. These changes were 
not recognized by Europe, and after the restorations of 
1814-15 the Holy Alliance proposed to force the colonies to 
return to the Spanish allegiance. How to accomplish this 
was debated at successive conferences, and in 1822 the 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 25 

Congress of Verona decided upon joint measures, which 
were to be undertaken simultaneously with the invasion 
of Spain to restore Ferdinand VII, a mandate for which 
was given to France. Fortunately, Canning, who had just 
become head of the British Foreign Office, opposed the 
proposition to restore the American colonies to Spain. 
Without British consent an expedition was not feasible, 
and the plan was dropped. The difference of opinion Tdc- 
tween the continental powers and Great Britain enabled 
the United States to notify the nations of Europe that an 
attempt to extend the European system to any portion of 
the American hemisphere would be regarded as the "mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United 
States." The weakness of Spain prevented her from win- 
ning back the colonies herself, although neither Great 
Britain nor the United States would have opposed her in 
doing so. The failure of the Verona program removed 
North and South America from the field of the extension 
of European eminent domain. It kept the United States 
out of world politics for more than seventy-five years. 
Had the members of the Holy Alliance gone to Central and 
South America to help Spain, they probably would have 
found pretext for staying to help themselves. 

For hundreds of years France did little or nothing to 
protect her ships and her nationals from the Barbary pi- 
rates in the Mediterranean. It seems incredible that at the 
very time when Napoleon was going from triumph to tri- 
umph in Europe French ships were being captured within 
sight of the coast and occasional raids made on French 
soil by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean African coast. 
To put a stop to this and to embark anew upon France's 
career as a colonial power, the French entered Algeria in 
1830, captured Algiers, and after seven years succeeded 
in taking Constantine. In 1844 they came to blows with 
Morocco. The beginning was made of a penetration of 
Africa, which in two generations brought France, at her 



26 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

very door, sources of great and varied wealth, and led her 
by a devious route into an alliance mth the country that 
had taken away her earlier colonial empire. The Algerian 
campaign had hardly been launched when the Bourbon dy- 
nasty fell. But Louis Philippe continued ^\ithout inter- 
ruption the colonial policy of Charles X. This showed that 
foreign policy was no longer a matter of dynasty, but 
had entered into the self-consciousness of the French 
people. 

The Greek War of Liberation is the first chapter in a long 
series of attempts of the European powers, working in 
concert, to sacrifice the aspirations of the subject races of 
the Ottoman Empire to what the statesmen of these powers 
beUeved to be the particular interests of the countries they 
represented. TVTien, in 1822, at the Congress of Verona, 
the Serbian and Greek revolts against Turkey were dis- 
cussed, 'it was decided that diminution of Ottoman sover- 
eignty could not be tolerated, owing to the unmllingness of 
any power to let any other power get control of emanci- 
pated territories. The prizes that might fall into some 
one's possession were so valuable that all thought it pref- 
erable to maintain the status quo of Turkish rule, however 
disgraceful and oppressive, rather than risk letting another 
win them. 

The Serbians revolted first, in 1804, and, although they 
suffered from blood feuds among their leaders, and were 
not recognized at Vienna, Milosh Obrenovitch (successor, 
by assassination, of the original hero of the revolution) se- 
cured from the sultan the title of prince and partial recog- 
nition of Serbian autonomy in 1820. Because Russia 
backed the Serbians, Austria and the other powers opposed 
their pretensions. The next year the Greek insurrection 
broke out and spread from the Adriatic to the ^gean. 
For six years the Greeks fought heroically and successfully 
held off the Turks. Despite massacres that stirred the in- 
dignation and won the sjnmpathy of cultured Europeans, 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 27 

French and British statesmen stood out against interven- 
tion. They feared what they had feared in regard to 
Serbia. Serbians and Greeks belonged to the Orthodox 
Church, and Russia was suspected of using the national 
movements to extend her pohtical influence to the Mediter- 
ranean. 

Finally, when Russia declared that she would have to 
intervene. Great Britain and France joined to make the 
impairment of Ottoman integrity as slight as possible and 
to prevent the Russians from posing as liberators. The 
Turko-Egyptian fleet was destroyed by the French, British, 
and Russians at Navarino ; when the Russians declared war 
against Turkey, the French sent troops to the Pelopon- 
nesus ; and when Turkey yielded, her loss of territory was 
made as little as possible. Thessaly, Epirus, and the 
islands of the ^gean, which had given most and suffered 
most for the cause of independence, were left under the 
Turkish yoke. The kingdom of Greece was constituted 
under the joint protection of Russia, France, and Great 
Britain. The Ionian Islands had been given to Great 
Britain by the Congress of Vienna, and it was felt that 
from this vantage-point Russia could be prevented from 
exercising undue influence over the tip of the Balkan 
peninsula. 

The Occidental powers and Austria were quickly con- 
fronted with a new attack upon the Ottoman Empire. Me- 
hemet Ali, an Albanian adventurer who had made him- 
self master of Egypt after the Napoleonic invasion, gave 
powerful aid to Turkey in the Greek War of Liberation. 
After the disaster of Navarino he rebuilt the Egyptian 
fleet, and, dissatisfied because the sultan did not reward or 
properly recognize his services, he sent his brilliant son, 
Ibrahim Pasha, to conquer Syria. In the winter of 1831-32 
Ibrahim Pasha conquered Syria, and then suddenly occu- 
pied Damascus and marched into Asia Minor. He won 
three battles, the last of them at Konia, north of the Taurus 



28 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Mountains, and the road to Constantinople was open. His 
fleet, cooperating in the Mediterranean, drove the Turks 
back to the Dardanelles. The Russians intervened to save 
Turkey, and announced their intention of sending a fleet 
and an army to protect Constantinople. To prevent this, 
the French and British also intervened, and peace was 
made in 1833, Turkey ceding Syria and Cihcia to Mehemet 
Ali for life and granting him the hereditary rulership of 
Eg^'pt. 

In 1839 the Turks tried to oust Mehemet Ali from Syria, 
and were defeated by Ibrahim Pasha at Nisib. The Turk- 
ish fleet went over to the Egyptians. Mehemet Ali, sup- 
ported by France, demanded of the sultan hereditary pos- 
session of all the lands under his military control. The 
British, suspecting France of aiming at the control of 
Egypt and Syria, formed an alliance with Austria, Prussia, 
and Russia to defend Turkey. French public opinion 
clamored for war. Had France been strong enough to 
fight, she would have done so. For the sake of peace, 
Thiers, who had been conducting French policy, was forced 
to retire and was succeeded by Guizot. Going ahead 's\ith- 
out the French, the British, Austrians, and Turks took 
Acre and forced Ibrahim Pasha to retire to Egj-pt. Me- 
hemet Ali lost Syria and Cihcia, but was compensated in 
the treaty of London, which recognized the autonomy of 
Egj-pt and the rulership of the country in the line of 
Mehemet Ali. 

The French were molUfied by the return of Napoleon's 
body from St. Helena. The reburial in the Hotel des In- 
vaUdes was the occasion of a remarkable demonstration. 
The effervescence over the Egyptian dispute and the hero- 
worship of Napoleon showed that the French had forgotten 
1814 and 1815 and were ready to build for the future upon 
the memory of former glories. Then they had thought of 
Europe; now they were thinking of the great world. Na- 
poleon had gone to Egypt and Syria in saiUng-vessels, and 



STEAM POWER (1789-1848) 29 

the rich commercial advantage of French influence in the 
Near East had not then been apparent. But in 1840, with 
railways and steamships, with factories and coal and iron, 
the French began to see what was in store for the nation 
with a world vision. Power would bring wealth. But 
other European nations thought as France did. They, too, 
were striving for power. 



CHAPTER III 

THE EISE OF WORLD POWEES (1848-1878) 

AT Paris in January, 1919, plenipotentiaries of twenty- 
seven states gathered to decide upon conditions of 
peace to be imposed upon Germany and the allies of Ger- 
many. In preliminary private conferences the representa- 
tives of France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United 
States, without so much as "by your leave," organized the 
work of drafting the treaties in such a way as to exclude 
the other states from any real voice in the deliberations. 
**The Principal Allied and Associated Powers with general 
interests" allotted themselves two members each on every 
committee and on the Council, which was to be the final 
court of decision. "The Secondary Powers with particular 
interests" were granted no representation on the Council, 
and were told that they would have to designate five mem- 
bers — to represent them all together — on the committees. 
Despite vehement protest and sulking, this plan was car- 
ried through. The great powers had won the war and 
would be responsible for enforcing the peace. Therefore, 
it was argued, they must keep in their hands the right to 
decide upon the terms of the treaties and the right to 
interpret them afterwards. 

This was not a new idea. It followed the tradition and 
practice of nineteenth-century diplomacy, begun at the 
Congress of Vienna and developed at the congresses of 
Paris (1856) and Berlin (1878). The only change was the 
exclusion of Germany and Russia and the inclusion of the 
United States and Japan. Because of the size of their 
annies and navies, and their success in using them, certain 
nations have long assumed the privilege of settling ques- 

30 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 31 

tions arising from war according to their own interests 
and at the expense alike of defeated nations, of weaker 
allied nations, and of neutrals. During the hundred years 
between the Napoleonic wars and the World War, this 
privilege had been gradually extended to cover every ques- 
tion aifecting the general welfare of mankind. The world 
powers were alone capable of waging war ; hence the peace 
of the world could be maintained only through agreement 
among themselves. The aim of diplomacy was to satisfy 
the world powers ; the destinies of other nations and races, 
their liberty, their security, their prosperity, their general 
well-being, were subordinated to the policies and ambitions 
of the world powers. 

The defect in the scheme lay in the inability of the world 
powers to satisfy one another. They fell out singly, and 
then sought to form combinations. From coalitions made 
for particular wars and terminating automatically when 
peace was signed, they were led into alliances contracted 
in time of peace to protect and advance their interests in 
different parts of the world. New causes for friction arose, 
which had little or nothing to do with the normal relations 
between nations. •» 

Before 1848 the chief concern of the powers, in their rela- 
tions with one another, was the preservation of the status quo 
of the act of Vienna. Monarchs and statesmen were afraid 
that the democratic movement, if successful in other coun- 
tries, would react upon the internal situation in their own 
country. Neither Eussia nor Austria could see new states 
born of the revival of subject races without feeling that 
the precedents shook the foundations of their own power. 
The breaking away of Belgium from Holland in 1830 was 
more than a breach of the act of Vienna. It gave hope to 
the partitioned Poles, and encouraged the fermentation in 
the Italian and Balkan peninsulas. The separatist move- 
ment in Hungary reacted almost as dangerously upon Rus- 
sia as upon Austria. But after the failure of the revolu- 



32 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tions of 1848 the powers began to realize that their chief 
danger was from the intrigues of neighboring powers. 
Revolutionary movements could hardly be successful unless 
encouraged and supported by an interested outsider. Sep- 
aratism was doomed to impotence if the nations affected 
were allowed a free hand to suppress it. The aid given by 
Russia to Austria against Hungary in 1849 was the last 
attempt to attain what the Holy Alliance called its main 
object, i. c, international cooperation against subversive 
internal political movements. 

The revolutions of 1848 were weathered everywhere in 
Europe except in France, where the Orleans dynasty fell 
and a republic succeeded in establishing effective adminis- 
trative control. The French republicans, however, realized 
that the national interest required continuing the foreign 
policy of the ousted regime. Principles and ideals, in the 
industrial era that was just da^vning, could not be subor- 
dinated to quixotic sympathy with peoples struggling for 
the same principles and ideals in another country. Ac- 
cordingly an army was despatched to Italy, which put an 
end to Garibaldi's Roman republic in the late spring and 
early summer of 1849. It was the same test as that of 1830. 
The ministers of Louis Philippe did not interrupt the ex- 
pedition begun by the ministers of Charles X in Algeria. 
Moreover, although they were in power because of a revo- 
lution undertaken in the name of liberty, they resisted 
every effort of generous-minded men to have France in- 
tervene in favor of the Poles. The famous response to a 
question asked in the Chamber of Deputies about Poland, 
' ' Order reigns in Warsaw, ' ' has never been forgotten. Con- 
vinced of the necessity of a foreign policy based on national 
interest, the French people thereafter allowed no internal 
disturbances or changes in goverimient to affect the min- 
istry of foreign affairs. Imperial or republican, clerical 
or anti-clerical, idealist or realist, the governments of 
France since 1848 have made moves and taken positions 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 33 

in international politics with one purpose, to protect and 
increase what were believed to be the commercial interests 
of France abroad. 

This new attitude, which is the inciting motive in world 
politics, entered into the aftermath of the Revolution of 
1848 in Germany. The preliminary parliament in Frank- 
fort decided to call a national German assembly for the 
purpose of making a constitution for a new German Em- 
pire. The troops of the German Confederation were loyal 
to the principle of unity. We can not understand the in- 
volved struggle in the German states, and the influences at 
work in the parliaments of Erfurt and Frankfort in 1850, 
by the sole factor of the rivalry of Prussia and Austria 
for hegemony. Nor can we consider the failure of the 
revolutionists, most of whom emigrated to the United 
States, as due to the single cause to which they attributed 
it. The triumph of reaction was temporary. The great 
mass of the German people did not abandon the revolution 
and frown upon republicanism merely because of an in- 
herent conservatism. The new industrialism, and the vis- 
tas of opportunity opened up by the development of rail- 
roads and ocean commerce, made the Germans think of 
unity as the summum honum. It is the commonly accepted 
idea that in the generation following the Revolution of 
1848 a ruthless Prussia, under the direction of Bismarck, 
stamped out her own liberties and those of her neighbors 
for the glorification of a dynasty and a caste. But this does 
not take into account the irresistible economic current that 
influenced the political evolution of central Europe during 
the third quarter of the nineteenth century. 

Unless the Germanic peoples were willing to seo them- 
selves doomed to permanent inferiority in the new Europe, 
they too had to unite and become a world power. Railroad 
construction required capital and continuity. There must 
be free access to coal and iron, common protection against 
foreign goods for the development of industries, and a 



34 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

united effort to bring into the country raw materials, and to 
find, all over the world, markets for manufactured articles. 
The Germans, the peoples of the Danube, and the Italians 
were faced with entirely new economic conditions in the 
struggle for existence. There was no alternative to the 
formation of large political organisms. 

The unification of Germany and Italy and the reorgani- 
zation of the Hapsburg dominions in a dual monarchy were 
events beyond the power of statesmen to cause or prevent, 
or even greatly to control. While it is far from our inten- 
tion to attribute the unifying processes in the three central 
European countries to conscious world policy, it is none 
the less true that when European powers became world 
powers it was inevitable that there should be a German}^, an 
Italy, and an Austria-Hungary. Although it is doubtful 
whether statesmen or people appreciated the full extent of 
their handicap in a world so completely transformed since 
1815, they did appreciate the handicap of lack of unity upon 
the development of industry and transportation facilities 
within their o^vn borders and with neighbors of the same 
blood, language, and culture. In the process of erecting 
political organisms that would enable the peoples of central 
Europe to hold their own with those of western and eastern 
Europe in the new era of extra-European expansion, Ger- 
mans, Austrians, Hungarians, and Italians fought one an- 
other with the aid of the already unified powers. And dur- 
ing the same period the inhabitants of the United States 
were engaged in a deadly civil war for the same purpose of 
unification. The conflict between states' rights and feder- 
alism came to a head in the New World, in South America 
as well as in North America, during the decade when the 
Old World was successfully forming centralized states. 
The same struggle for centralization was going on contem- 
poraneously in Japan. 

Great Britain, France, and Russia were ready to meet 
the new conditions, and their rise as world powers was not 



THE KISB OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 35 

marked by internal or external convulsions. They were 
ahead of the other nations, and this advantage they kept. 
Ultimately they formed a natural alliance to defend against 
the later claimants the privileged position won through 
their geographical position and their earlier achievement 
of political unity. 

The significant events in the preparation of the other 
great states to rise to world power may be briefly reviewed. 

The German Empire was created through the activities 
of Prussia, who took these successive steps: (1) founda- 
tion, in 1828 and 1833, of the German customs union {Zoll- 
verein), which Prussia had been advocating since 1818; 
(2) reestablishment of the German Confederation of 1815 
at Dresden in 1851; (3) war, along with Austria, against 
Denmark, resulting in the termination of Denmark 's rights 
over Schleswig and Holstein in 1864; (4) alliance with the 
smaller north German states and Italy against Austria 
and the south German states, which were defeated in the 
war of 1866; (5) expulsion of Austria from the Germanic 
Confederation, followed by the incorporation of some small 
German territories in Prussia; (6) establishment, under 
Prussian leadership, of the North German Confederation, 
including all except four south German states; (7) war, 
with the aid of these south German states, against France, 
resulting in the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine and the crea- 
tion of the German Empire in 1871. 

Italy was created through the expansion of the kingdom 
of Sardinia and the unofficial activities (sometimes dis- 
avowed) of the revolutionist Garibaldi, involving these suc- 
cessive steps: (1) Sardinia, with France, fought Austria 
and annexed Lombardy in 1859, paying France by giving 
up Savoy and Nice; (2) Modena, Parma, and Tuscany, 
expelling their rulers, united with Sardinia in 1860; (3) 
Garibaldi invaded Sicily, passed to the mainland, and over- 
threw the kingdom of Naples, which voted to join the king- 
dom of Sardinia, also in 1860; (4) the kingdom of Italy 



36 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

was proclaimed at Turin on March 17, 1861; (5) Italy, with 
Prussia, fought Austria, and won Venetia by the peace 
settlement in 1866; (6) the Italian government seized Rome 
and the papal states in 1870, when the defeat of France by 
Germany forced the withdrawal of French troops which 
had been protecting the temporal poAver of the papacy dur- 
ing all the progress of Italian unification. 

Austria-Hungary was created through the expulsion of 
Austria from the Germanic Confederation by Prussia in 
the war of 1866. Austria had been greatly weakened by 
the revolutions in Bohemia, Hungary, and her Italian pos- 
sessions. The Hungarian revolution was crushed with the 
help of Russia in 1849, but Lombardy and Venetia were 
lost in the wars of 1859 and 1866. When Austria lost her 
position in the Germanic Confederation, she was no longer 
strong enough to cope mth the different nationalities of 
the Hapsburg empire. Consequently the German element 
had to choose between the dwindling of the empire and 
division of power with other races. In 1867 a compromise 
was made Avith the Hungarians, by Avhich the empire was 
changed into a dual monarchy. Hungary and Austria 
henceforth had the same ruler, but were largely independent 
of each other in internal affairs. The two equal partners, 
in turn, were left to make what compromises or arrange- 
ments they saw fit with other racial elements within their 
borders. The Austrians oppressed the Czechs and Italians, 
but gave virtual autonomy to the Poles, abandoning to them 
the Ruthenians (Ukrainians). The Hungarians granted a 
separate diet to the Croatians at Agram, but held doAAm the 
Rumanians. This unique political organism could not be 
called a nation in the sense that Germany and Italy AA^'ere 
nations. Its political existence seemed dependent upon the 
strength of Germany and the Aveakness of the Balkan 
States. But, although torn by nationalist movements, 
which each decade became more threatening, the polyglot 
dual monarchy managed to survive because of conmion 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 37 

economic interests and the advantage to the various peoples 
of belonging to a strong political organism able to face 
the competition of other world powers and to provide in- 
dustrial and transportation necessities. 

When she won her independence from Great Britain, 
the United States was a small country along the Atlantic 
coast, containing less than three million population. From 
the point of view of political unity and of development of 
national sentiment, the new republic was fortunate in its 
cultural and linguistic unity. The earlier immigration 
was mostly English-speaking, and the non-British portion 
was of the same north European stock as the original set- 
tlers. There were no serious problems of racial and reli- 
gious antagonism. But the Union was formed on the basis 
of a voluntary confederation of states that had retained 
their boundaries and had surrendered only part of their 
governing powers to the federal government. Chiefly be- 
cause of the slavery question the states of the North and 
the South gradually drifted apart. Because it was not 
profitable, slavery disappeared in the North. In the South 
it seemed indispensable to agricultural development. As 
the country grew by penetration and settlement westward, 
and new states were added, in most of which the holding 
of slaves was against public sentiment, the South fell more 
and more into the minority in the confederation. Fearing 
being overwhelmed and being deprived of their slaves, 
eleven of the Southern States attempted to secede from the 
Union. The Northern States denied the alleged right of 
secession, and a war of four years followed. Great Britain 
and France sympathized with the South, but did not inter- 
vene. The North won, and the unity and perpetuity of the 
United States were finally assured in 1865. 

Japan was opened to foreign intercourse and trade by 
the intervention of the United States. From 1854 to 1858 
the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia suc- 
ceeded in negotiating treaties of commerce with the **sho- 



38 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

gun," whom the powers presumed to be the ruler of Japan. 
He was indeed the holder of secular authority, but the sho- 
gunate was a usurped position, in the hands of feudal 
lords. It had been held by one family for more than two 
hundred and fifty years, and other feudal families, who 
were dissatisfied, took advantage of the resentment against 
the shogun aroused by his jdelding to foreigners to con- 
spire against him. The result of the ratification of treaties 
extorted by the foreign powers was the resignation of the 
last shogun in 1867, and the resumption of government by 
the lawful sovereign, the mikado, in 1868. Civil war fol- 
lowed, in which the imperialists were successful. In 1871 
feudalism was abolished, and Japan started upon a united 
political life. National self-consciousness was born of the 
instinct of self-preservation, and Japan began to imitate 
Occidental civilization in order to become a world power. 

While the Germans and Italians were accomplishing 
their unification, and the Austrians and Hungarians were 
wrestling vrith the problem of forming a state, capable of 
maintaining itself as an equal among the world powers, in 
which the majority of the population was of other races, 
Great Britain, France, and Russia laid the foundations of 
their political influence, according to the new conception 
of that term, in the Far East and the Near East. 

Great Britain began the policy, followed later by the 
other powers, of compelling China to cede territory and 
commercial privileges by force of arms. In 1834 Emperor 
Taukwang, alarmed at the evil effects of opium introduced 
into China by British traders from India, attempted to 
revive an edict prohibiting the opium trade. The moment 
was opportune, and no international agreement was vio- 
lated, for the exclusive privilege of the East India Com- 
pany had just expired. But the trade had become too prof- 
itable to lose. After several years of negotiations, the 
British declared war on China. The immediate cause was 
the refusal of the Chinese government to reimburse British 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 39 

merchants for the destruction of more than twenty thou- 
sand chests of opium landed on Chinese soil in defiance of 
the prohibition. Great Britain demanded also that the 
imperial edict be revoked and that trade be continued and 
protected. In 1842 China was compelled to sign the treaty 
of Nanking, by which the island of Hong-Kong was ceded 
to Great Britain ; five ports were opened to British trade ; 
and an indemnity was exacted. A supplementary treaty, 
signed the next year, established the five per cent, ad 
valorem tariff, and forced China to admit the principle of 
extraterritoriality. 

In 1844 the United States and France succeeded also 
in making commercial treaties with the unwilling Chinese. 
There was a scramble for trade, into which Russia, begin- 
ning to penetrate from Siberia, entered. In 1856 a small 
Chinese sailing-vessel, owned by a Chinese but flying the 
British flag, was boarded by Chinese officers hunting for 
pirates. Some of the crew were arrested and the flag was 
pulled down. This incident led to a new declaration of 
war by Great Britain against China, in which France 
joined. The Chinese fleet was destroyed in May, 1857, 
and Canton was captured at the end of the year. There- 
fore, in 1858, the Chinese signed treaties with Great Britain, 
France, the United States, and Russia, promising a measure 
of protection to traders and ships, which the authority of 
the Peking government was unable to assure. By the 
treaties of Tientsin in June, 1858, the number of treaty 
ports was increased, French sovereignty in Indo-China was 
recognized, and the Amur Province was ceded to Russia. 
When a British ambassador attempted to go to Peking in 
1859, and was fired at. Great Britain and France renewed 
the war, marched on Peking, burned the Summer Palace, 
and made the Chinese ratify the treaty of Tientsin, agree 
to tolerate Christianity, pay an indemnity, and receive 
resident ambassadors at Peking. In the meantime, in 1858, 
to avenge the death of a missionary, the French declared 



40 AX INTRODUCTION TO ^ORLD POLITICS 

war against the king of Anam. Saigon was occupied, and 
Anam became French. 

While Great Britain and France were fighting China, 
Eussia succeeded in getting title to the territory north of 
the Amur, and when the treaties were amphfied at Peking 
in 1860 the Kussian minister, posing as the savior of China, 
persuaded the Chinese government to cede the maritime 
province, east of the Usuri River, in which Russia had al- 
ready established certain "rights." In 1871 Russia began 
anew her encroachment upon China by announcing that she 
had annexed the province of Kulja in the interior ''until 
the Chinese power should be reestablished in that region." 
Eventually China ceded most of Kulja to Russia, and paid 
an indemnity to boot. China has not been free from foreign 
occupation and exploitation since her first acquaintance 
with Occidental civilization. 

The beginnings in Japan were the same. But the Jap- 
anese reacted in a different way from the Chinese. An 
American fleet first opened Japan to foreign commerce in 
1853.^ The French, British, and Russians made commer- 
cial treaties in 1854 and 1855, following closely the treaty 
between Japan and the United States. These were broad- 
ened in 1858 to secure unrestricted commerce. In 1862 the 
British avenged the death of an Englishman in a brawl by 
bombarding Kagoshima and exacting an indenmity. In 
1863 American, Dutch, and French vessels anchored in a 
forbidden spot at Shimonoseki. After due warning they 
were fired upon. This resulted in a reprisal bombardment, 
followed by negotiations for an indemnity. The next year 
Great Britain joined the United States, France, and Hol- 
land in a second bombardment, and aided in collecting a 
large indemnity. After twenty years, the House of R-epre- 
sentatives, recognizing the shamefulness of the proceeding, 

* This is the commonlv accepted date, but in reality it is more correct to say 
that Japan bcj;an hi-r international commercial relations as a result of the 
Bccond visit of the American fleet in 1854. 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 41 

returned the American portion of the indemnity to Japan. 
But, as we have seen, during this period the mikado was 
regaining his power and uniting his people around the 
throne. Japan rapidly became too strong to be exploited. 

In the Near East the rise of world powers was marked by 
three wars of Eussia against Turkey, in 1828, 1854, and 
1877, each occasioned by the announced intention of Russia 
to free from Ottoman rule the Christian races subject to 
Turkey. The other powers, especially Great Britain, sus- 
pected Russia each time of wanting to destroy the Otto- 
man Empire for the purpose of gaining an outlet to the 
Mediterranean and becoming the dominant power in the 
eastern Mediterranean and Persia. Both of these objects 
were considered by Great Britain a menace to her naval 
power and to India. 

Of the first war we have already spoken. To prevent 
Russia from obtaining control of Constantinople, Great 
Britain and France joined with her in compelling the Turks 
to recognize the independence of Greece, and thus became 
co-guarantors with Russia of the Greek kingdom. This 
was accomplished at the Conference of London in 1830, 
which modified the terms of the treaty of Adrianople, con- 
cluded between Russia and Turkey in the previous year. In 
addition, the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, 
on the Danube, were made autonomous. We have also 
spoken of the intervention of the powers in 1840 to prevent 
Mehemet Ali from detaching from the sultan the Arabic- 
speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire. 

In 1853 Czar Nicholas I, assigning misgovernment and 
persecution as the grounds for his action, demanded of the 
Sublime Porte that the right be granted to Russia to pro- 
tect the Christians of the Greek Church in the Turkish em- 
pire. In private conversation with the British ambassador 
at Petrograd, the czar admitted that his object was to make 
Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and the Danubian principalities 
independent states under Russian protection. This, he 



42 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

thought, would require a provisional occupation of Constan- 
tinople by a Russian army; and he intimated that Russia 
would not oppose the acquisition of Crete and Egypt by 
Great Britain. Since Napoleon III had recently come to 
the throne of France, and was presumably unacceptable to 
the British, he beheved that an alUance between France and 
Great Britain was impossible, while Austria owed her sal- 
vation to Russia for the intervention against the Hun- 
garian revolutionists four years earher. 

Nicholas, whose country had been the least affected in 
all Europe by the economic changes since his succession to 
the throne in 1825, did not reaUze how public opinion in 
other countries (there was little in his own) was begin- 
ning to mix business with sentiment. Neither Austrians 
nor Itahans, although sworn enemies, could afford to al- 
low Russia to ensconce herself in the Balkans and come 
down to the Adriatic. Prussia, building up the German 
customs union {Zollverein) and looking forward to the new 
possibihties of trade routes to the east by railway and 
steam transportation on the Danube, wanted no Slavic bar- 
rier between central Europe and the East. France was the 
traditional protector of the Catholic Christians of the Ot- 
toman Empire, who predominated in Syria, and considered 
herself the custodian of the holy places in Palestine. The 
French had dreams also of silk and cotton and other riches 
in Cihcia, Syria, and Egypt. Napoleon III needed a war 
to establish his dynasty and to enable France to throw off 
the consequences of the treaties of 1814 and 1815; while 
Lord Palmerston made Queen Victoria see that prejudice 
should not stand in the way of recei\'ing the nephew of 
Bonaparte and his plebeian bride. 

When the Russians occupied the Danubian principalities 
Great Britain and France sent a fleet to the Bosphorus. 
After months of vain parley, the two powers declared 
war upon Russia, allying themselves %vith Turkey in March, 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 43 

1854. Prussia and Austria declared that the passage of 
the Balkans by Russia would be considered an act of war. 
Nicholas withdrew his troops from the Danube, but the 
French and British, with several regiments of Turks, 
landed a large expedition in the Crimea. Prussia and Aus- 
tria stationed armies on the frontier of Russia in an atti- 
tude of watchful neutrality. Cavour, prime minister of 
Sardinia, persuaded Victor Emmanuel I to join the alli- 
ance and send fifteen thousand men to take part in the siege 
of Sebastopol. After a year of costly fighting, the Crimean 
War ended with Russia suing for peace. Nicholas I died in 

1855, and was succeeded by Alexander II. 

Since it was recognized that all the powers had an in- 
terest in the Near Eastern settlement, it was agreed to 
make the treaty with Russia the work of an international 
conference, which would decide moot questions of interna- 
tional relations that had arisen since the Congress of 
Vienna. The Congress of Paris met on February 25, 1856, 
and included the plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, 
Russia, Sardinia, Austria, Prussia, and Turkey. It was 
the first appearance of Sardinia at the council table among 
the great powers. Nor had Turkey ever before been in- 
vited to sit with the European powers. 

The peace of Paris, signed on March 30, 1856, restored 
the fortress of Kars, on the frontier of Armenia, to Tur- 
key, and the Crimea to Russia; southern Bessarabia, the 
outlet of the Danube, was ceded by Russia to Moldavia, 
which, with Wallachia, received autonomy under the guar- 
anty of the powers; the autonomy of Serbia was recog- 
nized ; the Black Sea was neutralized, even to the war-ships 
and fortifications of the countries on its littoral; an inter- 
national commission was created to control navigation of 
the Danube; and the Ottoman Empire was admitted ''to 
participate in the public law and concert of Europe," the 
powers engaging collectively to guarantee ''the indepen- 



44 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

dence and the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire," 
and the sultan to ameliorate the condition of his subjects 
''without distinction of race or creed." 

In three conventions annexed to the main treaty, Great 
Britain, France, and Russia agreed upon the neutrality 
of the Aland Islands, at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, 
in peace and war ; the six powers and the sultan reaffirmed 
the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire closing the Dar- 
danelles and Bosphorus to foreign ships of war, unless 
Turkey herself should be at war ; and Russia and Turkey 
specified the number and armament of coast-guard ships 
in the Black Sea. 

Shortly after the peace of Paris was signed, the seven 
contracting nations proposed to the other nations of the 
world common adherence to new rules regarding maritime 
international law. The declaration of Paris, signed on 
April 16, 1856, was the outcome of this attempt to reach 
an understanding upon the principles that should regulate 
warfare on sea. Privateering was abolished ; enemy goods 
on neutral vessels were not to be confiscated, unless contra- 
band according to an agreed schedule; and a blockade, in 
order to be binding, must be effective. The United States 
refused to sign the declaration because it did not also for- 
bid the capture of private enemy vessels. But many na- 
tions signed before the end of 1856, and Japan in 1886. 
International jurists regard the declaration of Paris as an 
important step forward in the progress of the "family of 
nations." But historians must reluctantly note that it has 
been violated by the signatories whenever its observance 
has conflicted ^\ith their interests. In the study of world 
politics we shall often find treaties and international con- 
ventions breaking down when put to the test. On paper 
many advances in the law of nations, with a view to safe- 
guarding private property and ameUorating the conditions 
under which wars are fought, seem to denote a gradual ad- 
vance of civilization. In practice the agreements have not 



THE KISE OF "WORLD POWEES (1848-1878) 45 

stood in the way of the nation that believed it had the force 
to violate them. Seventy-five years of discussion, mostly v 
quibbling, prove that the right or wrong in the interpreta- ^ 
tion of international law has been determined, not by ju- 
rists, but by the statesmen of powers victorious in war. 
Since the rise of world powers these powers have rarely al- 
lowed, in their relations either with one another or with 
neutrals or weaker states, treaty clauses and agreements to 
stand between them and policies they have believed it es- 
sential to follow in order to win wars. 

The Crimean War had a profound influence upon the rise 
of the world powers. It was the first European war fought 
by the British after the House of Commons became, through 
the Reform Act of 1832, a body in which the growing busi- 
ness interests had adequate representation. The bloody 
sacrifices of the war awakened in England a widespread 
interest in foreign policy and a determination to de- 
fend and extend British possessions overseas. This was 
shown in the remarkable response of public opinion to the 
challenge of the Sepoy mutiny in India during the follow- 
ing year, and also to the stubbornness of China about 
granting tolerable trading conditions to Europeans in the 
same year. The British were willing to fight in India and 
China as they had fought in the Crimea. The Congress of 
Paris gave Napoleon III the prestige and power he had 
expected from his participation in the Crimean War and 
prepared French public opinion for intervention in Italy 
three years later. Prussia delayed joining the other 
powers in the Congress of Paris. She came in only when 
she was assured that her participation would not offend 
Russia and that her presence was necessary if she hoped 
to share in what one might call the by-products of the 
congress. 

The treaty of Paris was a factor whose importance in 
hastening the unification of Italy and Germany should not 
be underestimated. The article neutralizing the Black Sea 



46 AN INTRODUCTION TO ^ORLD POLITICS 

was fatal to the security and prosperity of Russia. It was 
r signed under duress, and the czar's government immedi- 
ately laid plans to repudiate it. Austria and France had to 
be weakened so that they could not a second time work 
with Great Britain to prevent Russia's development as a 
world power. During the next fifteen years this was ac- 
complished. Germany and Italy were the beneficiaries; 
Prussia was the instrument. From the Congress of Vienna 
to the Congress of Paris, Russian diplomacy had helped 
Austria keep the Itahan states from uniting. After the 
Crimean TTar this policy was reversed. France in 1859 
and Prussia in 1866 fought Austria and made possible the 
unification of Italy. Russia allowed Prussia to expel Aus- 
tria from the German Confederation in 1866, and refused 
to intervene or to intercede when Prussia and the other 
German states conquered France in 1870. For the sec-ond 
time an Alexander had the satisfaction of seeing a Napo- 
leon, who had crossed the path of Russia, driven from his 
throne. 

When the Germans laid siege to Paris, Russia addressed 
to the powers a note denouncing the Black Sea clauses of 
the treaty of Paris, and declared that the czar proposed to 
resume his "sovereign rights" in the Black Sea. Prussia 
said nothing. France was preoccupied. Great Britain 
and Austria-Hungary were loud in their protests. But, 
not being willing to fight \rithout the aid of France and at 
least the assurance of the neutrahty of Prussia, the British 
and Austrians contented themselves with insisting that a 
change in the treaty of Paris could be made only by inter- 
national consent. On March 13, 1871, the treaty of London 
abrogated the Black Sea clauses of the treaty of Paris; 
and Russia was once more able to begin to threaten the 
integrity of the Ottoman Empire. 

The attempt to Umit the worid activities of a great nation 
by forcing a one-sided treaty upon one world power by a 
coalition of other worid powers had failed. The other pur- 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 47 

pose of the treaty of Paris, i. e., to prevent the emancipa- 
tion of subject nationalities in the Ottoman Empire be- 
cause their freedom might lead to conflicts between the 
powers for commercial supremacy in the Near East, 
failed also. 

After the Congress of Paris, Moldavia and Wallachia 
voted the ''union of the principalities in a single neutral 
and autonomous state, subject to the suzerainty of the 
sultan, and under the hereditary and constitutional govern- 
ment of a foreign prince." The powers answered that 
the principalities must remain separate, as provided in 
the treaty of Paris. Moldavia and Wallachia defied the 
powers, and constituted the principality of Rumania in 
January, 1859. A native nobleman was elected prince, but 
in 1866 was replaced by Prince Carol of Hohenzollern- 
Sigmaringen, a cousin of the king of Prussia. The powers 
refused to recognize the new sovereign, just as they had 
refused to recognize the union itself. But they accepted 
the fait accompli, and fifty years later, when the World 
War broke out, this HohenzoUern was still on the Ruma- 
nian throne. 

The reforms promised when Turkey was admitted into 
the family of European nations at Paris did not material- 
ize. On the contrary, misrule and oppression increased, 
until the breaking-point was reached in 1875, when the 
Balkan peoples rose in revolt. Russia again wanted to 
intervene, and in 1876 secured the cooperation of Austria, 
Germany, France, and Italy. The demands for reform 
were presented in what is known as the Berlin Memoran- 
dum. The British not only refused to join in the memo- 
randum, but sent their fleet to anchor at the Dardanelles. 
This both prevented common pressure upon Turkey and 
deterred the Russians from acting independently. Des- 
perate and left to their own resources, Serbia and Monte- 
negro declared war upon Turkey, in aid of the Bosnians 
and Herzegovinians already in revolt. The Bulgarians, 



48 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

who had been completely submerged by the Turks for 
nearly five hundred years, rebelled. Terrible massacres 
followed. A year of diplomatic effort was fruitless. 
Eussia, for the third time, went to the assistance of the 
Balkan Christians. Rumania joined Russia. Once more 
the Russians took Kars, and after a long delay at Plevna 
they crossed the Balkans and advanced to the gates of 
Constantinople. The British fleet passed the Dardanelles. 
Parliament made a large grant, and when the Russians 
dictated to the Turks a drastic treaty at San Stefano on 
March 3, 1878, freeing the Balkan peoples. Great Britain, 
backed by Austria, gave Russia the alternative of war or 
a revision of the treaty by a conference of the powers. 

The treaty of San Stefano made Serbia, Montenegro, 
and Rumania independent, and gave them additional ter- 
ritory; created an autonomous Bulgaria; and stipulated 
definite reforms for the protection of the Bosnians and 
Herzegovinians in Europe and the Armenians in Asia. 
Russia was ceded new territories in Transcaucasia, includ- 
ing the port of Batum. The boundaries provided for were 
far from perfect, and they did not satisfy any of the Balkan 
peoples. But the settlement was a distinct step forward 
in the emancipation of Christians from Mohammedan mis- 
rule. This, however, was a secondary consideration with 
the British and Austro-Hungarian statesmen, who were 
willing to let the Christians suffer rather than run the risk 
of seeing the Balkans pass under Russian influence. As 
at the time of the Crimean AVar, the British Parliament 
was ready to fight to check the advance of the world power 
of Russia where it would conflict mth the world j^ower of 
Great Britain. Disraeli, the British prime minister, put 
it thus: 

**You have a new world, new influences at work, new and 
unknown objects and dangers with which to cope. . . . The 
relations of England to Europe are not the same as they 
were in the days of Lord Chatham or Frederick the Great. 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 49 

The Queen of England has become the Sovereign of the 
most powerful of Oriental States. On the other side of the 
globe there are now establishments belonging to her, teem- 
ing with wealth and population. . . . These are vast and 
novel elements in the distribution of power. . . . What our 
duty is at this critical moment is to maintain the Empire 
of England." 

In 1856 Russia, defeated in war, had to go to Paris and 
allow the other powers to decide upon the solution of the 
Eastern question according to their interests. Victorious 
in war, Russia hardly fared better at the Congress of Ber- 
lin. Under the guidance of Bismarck, who presided over 
the congress, Germany chose to stand by Austria-Hungary 
rather than by Russia. Without German support, Russia 
could not resist the other powers. Hence, her only terri- 
torial gains, outside of getting back from Rumania the 
strip of Bessarabia that she had been forced to cede to 
Moldavia in 1856, were in Transcaucasia. Rumania was 
compensated by being given the Dobrudja, between the 
Danube and the Black Sea, at the expense of Bulgaria. 
The independence of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro 
was recognized. Bulgaria, however, was put back under 
the Turks, and, further, while her autonomy was assured, 
an artificial division was made of the territories mostly in- 
habited by Bulgarians. Autonomous Bulgaria was given 
frontiers resting on the Balkans and the Danube. South 
of the Balkans, the province of Eastern Rumelia was con- 
stituted, with Philippopolis as its capital — an artificial 
creation, wholly separated from Bulgaria, but with a Chris- 
tian governor named by the sultan. Bulgaria was cut off 
from the ^gean Sea, and the Bulgarians and Greeks of 
Macedonia were returned to Turkish rule, as were the 
Armenians of Asia Minor, without guaranties. 

The treaty of Berlin was signed on July 13, 1878. France 
got nothing by it. To Italy it meant a check to the pan- 
Slav dream of expansion to the Adriatic. Austria was 



50 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

allowed to occupy, under indefinite terms, Bosnia and 
Herzego\ana, and to keep a military garrison in the Sanjak 
of Novibazar. Germany asked for no tangible spoils, but 
laid the foundations for her later friendship vdth the Turks 
and for the Drang nach Osten. Great Britain once more 
blocked Russian designs upon the Ottoman Empire and 
prepared the way for the occupation of Egypt, which had 
become essential to the British Empire — from the world- 
pohtics point of view — since the Red Sea and the Mediter- 
ranean had been connected by railway and canal. By a 
separate agreement with Turkey (signed on June 4), of 
which the other powers at first knew nothing, England was 
**to occupy and administer" the island of Cyprus as long 
as Russia kept Kars and Batum. Since Lord SaUsbury 
and Count Schouvalofi had already arrived at an agree- 
ment concerning Kars and Batum, of which the Turks knew 
nothing, the Cyprus convention, while ostensibly concluded 
to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, was a 
step toward destroying it. 

The Congress of Berlin made an honest effort to find a 
solution of the Near Eastern question that would avoid a 
general European war. It was accepted that no power 
could keep out of the scramble for Ottoman lands, should 
the empire break up. There was the same anxiety as at 
Paris in 1856 and at Vienna in 1815 to lessen as much as 
possible the disturbing eifect of the creation of new states 
in the relations between the great powers. The suspicion 
of interestedness and of desire to secure exclusive political, 
and hence economic, advantages, which was manifested 
against Russia after the treaty of San Stefano, became the 
attitude of all the powers in regard to help rendered any- 
where at any time by a single power to a smaller or weaker 
state. The duty of the statesman, as defined in the quota- 
tion of Disraeli given above, was to think of ever>'' political 
event and threatened change of the status quo, no matter 
where it occurred, in the light of the interests of his own 



THE RISE OF WORLD POWERS (1848-1878) 51 

nation. In an age of steam power and world markets geo- 
graphical position and propinquity no longer justified a 
claim of superior or special interests of a country in the 
solution of political problems such as, in other epochs of 
history, would not have been contested. At least, the ex- 
pansion of a nation to adjacent territory would not, under 
the earlier conditions, have led to war or the threat of war 
on the part of far-off nations. 

With the rise of world power the field of anxious and 
even aggressive diplomatic activities of European nations 
began to cover the world. And as population and industry, 
military strength and wealth, did not remain the exclusive 
prerogative of European nations, and as the European 
powers continued to rival and checkmate one another, the 
rise of world powers in Europe was followed, in the genera- 
tion after the Congress of Berlin, by the rise of world 
powers in America and eastern Asia. 



CHAPTER rV 

FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 

WHEN" we compare the treaties of Paris (1814), 
Vienna (1815), and Franlrfort (1871) with the 
treaty of Versailles (1919), we realize the difference the 
era of world politics has made in the aims of statesman- 
ship. The industrial era has brought us to the point of 
seeking exclusive advantages for our own commercial in- 
terests at the expense of competitors ; hence the victors in 
the twentieth-centuiy war exclude the vanquished from 
every privilege, political or economic, outside their 0A\ai 
country, not hesitating even to confiscate the private 
property of enemy nationalists. A century ago, although 
France before the fall of Napoleon had already lost most 
of her colonial empire, she was not despoiled of every- 
thing by the victorious allies. In America she was left 
St. Pierre and Lliquelon, valuable for fishing off the banks 
of Newfoundland ; Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West 
Indies; and a share of Guiana on the northeast coast of 
South America. Her five colonies in India, which had been 
occupied by the British since 1793, were handed back to 
her. She was allowed to keep the island of Reunion in 
the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, and was confirmed 
in her possession of the mouth of the Senegal River in 
west Africa. 

From 1815 to 1870, with the notable exception of Algeria, 
the French made little effort to rebuild their colonial em- 
pire. Algeria was conquered between 1830 and 1847. In 
tlie last years of Louis Philippe they began to stake out 
claims in the vSouth Sea islands, and they made a settlement 
for a naval port of call at the mouth of the Gabun River 

52 



FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 53 

in Africa in 1845. Under Napoleon III the pacification 
of Algeria was continued, and contact began with the Moor- 
ish tribes. There was some activity also in Senegal, and 
on the coast of Somaliland Obok was purchased in 1862 
as a check to the British occupation of Perim. The most 
important colonial achievement of Napoleon III was the 
foundation laid for the creation of Indo-China by interven- 
tion in Cochin-China in 1861 and in Cambodia in 1862. The 
extra-European activities of France before the disastrous 
war with Prussia were, however, mostly negative. From 
the time of Mehemet Ali, the French had an advantage 
over other powers in Egypt. They conceived and financed 
the building of the Suez Canal, but allowed it to pass out 
of their hands. They cooperated with Great Britain in 
fighting China, but got no tangible gain like Hong-Kong. 
The Crimean War brought them only trouble. They at- 
tempted to use their navy in the Persian Gulf, but did not 
succeed in more than postponing British control of Zan- 
zibar and Muscat. Napoleon III intervened in Syria in 
1860 and caused those responsible for the massacre of 
Christians to be hanged at Damascus. But he got no 
definite political concessions. 

At Frankfort, in 1871, the victorious Germans thought 
only of Alsace and Lorraine. They could have compelled 
France to renounce her titles in Africa and Asia. But, 
without vision of what the next generation was going to 
show were the real needs of united Germany, Bismarck did 
not even attempt to get from France a recognition of Ger- 
many's right to expand in Africa and Asia. On the con- 
trary, he encouraged the French to devote their efforts to 
the creation of a new colonial empire, and especially to 
extend their influence along the Mediterranean coast of 
Africa. The first line of activity was expected to involve 
the French so deeply outside of Europe that they would 
accept as permanent the new frontier in the Vosges; the 
second was expected to keep open a breach with the Ital- 



54 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ians, which was already wide because of France's defense 
of the temporal power of the papacy. 

From 1871 to 1914 colonial ambitions played a dominant 
role in the internal and international poUtics of the Third 
Eepubhc. The destiny of France and the personal for- 
tunes of her leaders were largely determined by overseas 
developments and everts. Back in 1840, when Thiers gave 
way to Guizot because Louis Philippe decided not to fight 
Great Britain over the question of Mehemet Ah and Egj^t, 
a cabinet crisis due to world politics was unique. Under the 
Third Republic it became a frequent occurrence. Through 
her colonial expansion France became the ally of her 
hereditary enemy, Great Britain. She built up a standing 
army of Africans and Asiatics to compensate for her sta- 
tionary population. Most important of all, colonial wars 
developed a new generation of officers and kept alive the 
military spirit. Wealth, too, came in abundance. 

The period from 1900 to 1914 enters intimately into the 
background of the war, and its phases are treated in sepa- 
rate chapters. The period from 1871 to 1900 brought the 
empire-building instinct of the French into play in five 
distinct fields: north Africa; west and central Africa; 
Madagascar; the Far East; and Oceania. It is necessary 
to comment at this point on developments in these quarters. 

Algeria was completely conquered during the reign of 
Louis Philippe, and in 1870 native regiments fought %\itli 
the French against the Germans. After that date the 
French endeavored to make Algeria an integral part of 
France. European settlers and Jews were granted French 
citizenship ; emigres from Alsace and Lorraine were given 
every encouragement to settle there; and the government 
sought to turn French colonists thither. A law enacted in 
1873 evicted thousands of native proprietors from their 
lands. Then followed the suppression of the Moslem sys- 
tem of dispensing justice through kadis and the extension 
of the new French municipal law. This put the govern- 



FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 55 

ment of communes into the hands of minor officials and 
white colonists, who became legally the masters of the des- 
tinies of the natives among whom they lived. To bring 
and keep colonists, partial exemption from military service 
and taxation was offered, and likewise the lands of dis- 
possessed natives. This scheme of government was main- 
tained until 1898. It was unpopular with the natives, and 
it failed to attract the desired colonists from France. The 
reforms that have brought prosperity and contentment to 
Algeria were not put into effect, and administrative control 
was not extended to the Sahara hinterland, until the end 
of the nineteenth century. 

The conquest of Algeria was not opposed by the other 
powers. But when France expanded eastward into Tunisia 
and westward into Morocco she came into conflict with 
Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, and was both 
the beneficiary and the victim of international intrigues 
that led her into the war of 1914, This was the price she 
paid for the possession of what Jules Ferry called the two 
keys of France's house in Africa. 

When the French conquered A.lgeria they looked upon 
the occupation of Tunisia as a logical sequel. But after 
the Crimean War Turkey revived her claim of suzerainty. 
Napoleon III was busy with other affairs, and the British 
began to get control. They loaned money to the bey and 
built the first railroads, waterworks, and warehouses. 
Owing to the proximity of Malta, a British protectorate 
was talked about. The Italians, however, immediately 
after their unification, decided that Tunisia must be theirs. 
They competed with the British and in 1880 bought the 
railroad from them. From 1860 to 1880 tens of thousands 
of Italian colonists went to the coveted land. In 1878 at 
the Congress of Berlin, unknown to Italy, Salisbury, with 
the consent of Bismarck, assured France that there would 
be no opposition to intervention by her in Tunisia. The 
French invaded the country from Algeria in 1881, occupied 



56 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Tunisia, and forced the bey to sign a treaty putting himself 
under French protection. After two years of fighting the 
French were in full control. Great Britain, followed by 
the other powers, accepted the fait accompli of the pro- 
tectorate. Only the Italians, heartbroken but unable to 
fight the French, refused to recognize the occupation. They 
thereupon entered the Triple AlHance mth Germany and 
their traditional enemy Austria, and only in 1896 was 
their attitude of protest abandoned. On the ground that 
the regency of Tunisia was a part of the Ottoman domin- 
ions, the Porte objected to the French invasion and to 
the proclamation of the protectorate. Turkey had no 
power to back her remonstrances, but she continued to make 
frontier troubles for the French until the Italian occupa- 
tion of Tripoli thirty years later. Tunisia has prospered 
under French rule, and the naval base at Bizerta has given 
France a stronghold in the Mediterranean midway between 
Marseilles and Beirut. 

During the conquest of Algeria the most stubborn enemy 
of France, Abd-el-Kader, took refuge in Moroccan terri- 
tory. The encouragement thus given to the Algerians, and 
the desire to draw their own western boundary, prompted 
the French to send an army against the sultan of Morocco, 
who signed the treaty of Tangier in 1845. The boundary 
line was defined, and the sultan promised to give no further 
hospitality or comfort to Algerian rebels. Spain fought 
Morocco in 1859 and secured recognition of definite fron- 
tiers for her zone by the treaty of Tetuan in 1860. Be- 
cause of British interference, both of these treaties were 
less drastic than French and Spaniards intended them to be. 

During the entire period under survey Great Britain 
backed the sultan of Morocco against both French and 
Spaniards, and the latter did all they could against the 
French. Between 1471 and 1684 Tangier had belonged to 
Portugal, to Spain, to Portugal again, and finally to Eng- 
land. Owing to the mutual unwillingness of the powers 



FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 57 

to see one another ensconced in Morocco, and especially 
to the determination of Great Britain, after the British 
seized Gibraltar, to brook no rival in the Straits, Morocco 
remained a No Man 's Land until the beginning of the twen- 
tieth century. In 1880 a conference of the powers at 
Madrid agreed upon the policy of no special favors for any 
one power in the matter of foreign proteges, and from this 
time forth their representatives watched one another with 
a jealous eye. In 1900 France and Italy signed a secret 
agreement not to interfere with each other in efforts to 
extend exclusive economic, and later political, control over 
Tripoli and Morocco, and the way was opened to France 
in 1904 when a similar agreement concerning Morocco and 
Egjrpt was signed by France and Great Britain. The 
French originally planned to take all of North Africa, but 
in order to have Morocco they had to buy off Italy and 
Great Britain. 

Senegal, the oldest French colony in west Africa, goes 
back to the days of Richelieu. St. Louis, at the mouth of 
the Senegal River, was settled in 1637. French claims on 
the Ivory Coast date from Louis Philippe, but were not 
made good until 1883, when the Germans began to look for 
colonies in west Africa. The German occupation of Togo 
and Kamerun stimulated British and French activity in 
the basins of the Congo, Niger, and Senegal. The geog- 
raphy of these vast territories was little known, and it 
was natural that explorers and traders and soldiers should 
cross one another's trail in staking out the claims of their 
respective countries. This necessitated conferences and 
bargaining among statesmen who knew imperfectly, if at 
all, the countries they were giving one another. 

The ambition of France in west and central Africa was 
to build up an empire from the Atlantic to the Nile and 
from the Mediterranean to the Congo. When the work of 
explorers and missionaries resulted in the drawing of ac- 
curate maps and a knowledge of the tribes inhabiting the 



58 AN INTRODUCTION TO ^YORLD POLITICS 

interior, France, already mistress of Algeria, of Senegal, 
and of Gabun, was ready for the penetration. Dahomey 
was conquered in 1893, From 1881 to 1894, when Tim- 
buktu was captured, the French, by a succession of military 
expeditions, brought under their flag all the vast country 
from the Senegal to the upper Niger. During the next 
four years they went from Timbuktu through Lake Chad, 
and from the Gulf of Guinea through the upper Congo to 
the head- waters of the Nile. 

Agreements were signed w^th Portugal in 1886, with 
Great Britain in 1889, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1895, and 1898, and 
with Germany in 1897. The Anglo-French declaration of 
1890 was a compromise in which Great Britain recognized 
French influence over the whole central Sahara and a 
French protectorate over Madagascar in return for French 
recognition of British supremacy in Zanzibar. Expedi- 
tions from Timbuktu and Dahomey converged some dis- 
tance east of Lake Chad. When Major Marchand planted 
the French flag at Fashoda on the Nile, in 1898, French and 
British finally came to the verge of war. 

Portuguese and Dutch were the first settlers on Mada- 
gascar, and the English tried to establish a tea plantation 
there in 1630. From Louis XIV to Louis XVI the French 
had militaiy posts on the island and were continually fight- 
ing the natives mth little success. The treaty of Paris in 
1814 turned the French settlements over to the British. 
But in point of fact the last of them had been given up 
several years earher. The British, moreover, took the 
He de France, in the Indian Ocean, from France in 1810, 
gave it its old Dutch name, Mauritius, and have held it ever 
since. From Mauritius they endeavored to secure in Mada- 
gascar the influence the French formerly enjoyed. They 
sent missionaries, whose teachings were accepted readily by 
the Malagasy. As in Japan two hundred years earUer, 
and for the same reason (suspicion of the motives of the 
missionaries), Christianity was vigorously suppressed. In 



FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 59 

1861, after twenty-five years of non-intercourse, a change 
of sovereign led to the reopening of the island to European 
trade and missionary effort. The Malagasy refused to 
give the French exclusive rights, and made treaties with 
Great Britain and the United States as well as with France. 
The French persisted in their claims, and in 1883 bom- 
barded Tamatave and landed troops. After two years of 
fighting, the Malagasy queen signed a treaty agreeing to 
a protectorate, in substance if not in name. But British 
opposition, which went to the extent of aiding the Malagasy 
government in training an army, made ineffective the priv- 
ileges the French hoped to gain. In 1890 the French and 
British governments mutually agreed to give each other 
a free hand in Zanzibar and in Madagascar. In 1895 
the French invaded and conquered the central provinces 
of Madagascar, allowing the queen, however, to con- 
tinue to occupy the throne under French protection. 
But a rebellion in the next year resulted in the total aboli- 
tion of the island's independence. The queen was exiled to 
Algeria, and Madagascar was proclaimed a colony of 
France. It took four years more to establish complete 
authority. 

In the southeastern comer of Asia, Anam, Cambodia, 
Tongking, and Cochin-China were, up to the middle of the 
nineteenth century, independent states, with a long history 
behind them of fighting one another and of wars with Siam 
and China. The Cambodians and Anamese had succes- 
sively been masters of the whole country, and had been 
under the suzerainty of China and Siam. They had also 
received and expelled the Portuguese and Dutch. So in- 
volved with claims and counter-claims is the history of the 
Indo-Chinese states that, as in the Balkan portions of 
Europe, each race could go back to a period of supremacy 
to establish a title ; while the Siamese and Chinese, power- 
ful neighbors, were able to claim frontiers and overlord- 
ghip. Through French missionaries France was caUed in 



60 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

to intervene in one of the wars, and in the treaty of Ver- 
sailles, in 1787, the ruler of Cochin-China ceded the island 
of Pulo-Condore to France, and promised to assist that 
nation in wars against other powers, in return for French 
assistance in restoring and maintaining him on the throne 
of his country. 

The successors of the king who made this treaty repudi- 
ated it and persecuted Christian missionaries and converts. 
This gave the French an excuse for intervening, in coopera- 
tion with the Spaniards, during the early years of the reign 
of Napoleon III. Until the Far East became commercially 
attractive to the French, and they saw the British deriving 
advantages from the possession of Hong-Kong, the anti- 
Christian attitude of the Cochin-Chinese did not trouble 
Paris. The treaty of Versailles slept in the archives. In 
1858, when the French combined with the British against 
China, a Franco-Spanish fleet captured the port of Tourane. 
The French seized Saigon. Opposed by the Anamese, war 
followed with their country; and in 1862 Anam concluded 
a treaty with France and Spain recognizing the cession of 
three provinces of Cochin-China to France, promised secur- 
ity to French and Spanish missionaries, and agreed to pay 
an indemnity to the two powers. 

In 1863 Cambodia accepted the protectorate of France, 
and in 1867 the other three provinces of Cochin-China, left 
to Anam by the treaty of 1862, were annexed. In the same 
year Siam and France signed a treaty at Paris by which 
the Siamese recognized the French protectorate of Cam- 
bodia in return for the two provinces nearest Siam. 

The Third Republic tirelesslj^ extended the footholds in 
southeastern Asia secured by the Second Empire. In 1880 
China, to whom the Anamese had appealed, notified France 
that Tongking and Anam were states tributary to Peking. 
The answer of France was a military expedition to Anam, 
which was forced to accept the French protectorate in 1883. 
Against the protests of the Chinese minister in Paris, the 




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FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 61 

French advanced into Tongking and made the king of Anam 
sign a second treaty recognizing a French protectorate 
over Tongking. This led to war with China. By the 
treaty of Tientsin (1885) and two supplementary agree- 
ments (1887), France exacted from China recognition of 
the Anamese treaties, including her possession of Tong- 
king, a delimitation of frontier between China and Tong- 
king, and profitable terms of commercial intercourse be- 
tween China and the French protectorates. But the French 
found eight years of warfare necessary to subdue their 
new proteges. 

Through the annexation of Cambodia, France became a 
neighbor of Siam. We can not go into the story of the long 
dispute between France and Siam over the boundary of 
Indo-China. It was an unequal contest. France did not 
abide by the terms of the treaty of 1867; for, since her 
administrative control of Indo-China was developed, she 
was determined to get possession of the Mekong Valley 
and Laos. Occasions for intervention were manufactured, 
and force was used. In 1893 gunboats appeared before 
Bangkok and threatened to bombard the city if the Siamese 
did not evacuate the left bank of the Mekong and the 
islands in the river, cede Laos to France, and maintain a 
neutral zone on the right bank of the Mekong and the new 
Indo-Chinese frontier. Siam had to agree. Great Britain 
intervened, not, as it proved later, to protect Siam, but to 
check the French advance to the frontier of Burma and 
to get something from Siam for herself. The Siamese 
frontier questions were still unsettled with Great Britain 
when the French secured the rounding out of their Indo- 
Chinese empire on the northwest by the Peking convention 
of 1895. The British Foreign Office protested to China 
that cession of territory to France in this region violated 
an agreement made the year before with Great Britain to 
the effect that no portion of the country ceded to France 
should be alienated to any other power ''without previous 



62 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

agreement with Great Britain." The British gave in for 
a quid pro quo, that is, by getting something from China 
themselves. The Franco-British declaration of 1896 agreed 
on a boundary between the ''spheres of influence" of the 
two powers as far as the Chinese frontier. But the French 
did not have a free hand with Siam until the Franco-British 
agreement of 1904. Unopposed by any other power, 
France took more territory from Siam both in 1904 and 
in 1907. 

In Oceania the Spaniards and Dutch were the only navi- 
gators to report discoveries before the second half of the 
eighteenth century. Between 1767, when the Society and 
Low Islands were discovered, and 1803, when the Loyalty 
Islands were reported by the British, who had just landed 
in Tasmania, the mapping of the south Pacific was largely 
done by the British, many of whose claims date from the 
voyages of Captain Cook. The first French expedition of 
importance was that of Dumont d'Urville, who surveyed 
the Loyalty Islands in 1827. Three 3^ears later Roman 
Catholic missionaries went from France to New Caledonia, 
whence they spread to Tahiti, the Marquesas, and other 
archipelagos. Everywhere British Protestant mission- 
aries and French Catholic missionaries were at logger- 
heads. But the French government realized before the 
British government the possibilities of this remote part of 
the world. In 1842 a French crew secured the recognition 
of a French protectorate over Tahiti and the other Wind- 
ward Islands of the Society group and the Marquesas. 
The expulsion of the British consul from Tahiti by the 
French led to difificulties with the British government, and 
to opposition by the British to the extension of the French 
protectorate to the Leeward group. 

But in 1853 the French got ahead of the British in New 
Caledonia and annexed the island and its neighbor, the 
Isle of Pines. The London government, at that moment 
angUng for an alliance with Napoleon III in a war against 



FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1830-1900) 63 

Russia, did not protest. The Loyalty Islands, despite vio- 
lent opposition on the part of British missionaries, were 
added to the French possessions in 1864. Following the 
example of the British in Australia, the French used New 
Caledonia for a penal station for political offenders and 
ordinary criminals. It was New Caledonia that received 
the exiles from the Paris commune. But the transporta- 
tion of criminals was discontinued in 1898, and since then 
the white element of the population has decreased. In 
fact, France has done so little with New Caledonia that the 
Australians have looked on with envious eyes. 

The native ruling family of Tahiti was dispossessed in 
1880, and the island became a French colony. In 1887 the 
British agreed to abandon their insistence upon the neu- 
trality of the Leeward group, which enabled the French to 
extend their protection over the entire Society Islands. 
This arrangement also gave the French control of Raiatea 
in the New Hebrides group. The New Hebrides were de- 
clared neutral by Great Britain and France in 1878, after 
missionaries of both countries had been urging annexation 
upon London and Paris. Lord Salisbury, desiring to have 
the good-will of France at the Congress of Berlin, refused 
to go farther than a policy of mutual abstention. But a 
convention of 1887 estabhshed a condominium which was 
confirmed by the Anglo-French agreement of 1904. Owing 
to their position on the route to North America and Asia, 
the New Hebrides, however, became a source of friction. 
New Zealand and Australia, especially the latter, protested 
violently at London against the agreements of 1878, 1887, 
and 1904. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century France, like 
Great Britain, was in an advantageous position to main- 
tain and extend her world power. In fact, the two nations 
were in a class by themselves as regards the size, the dis- 
tribution, and the potentialities for naval and military 
power, for trade and investment development, of their over- 



64 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

seas possessions. Eussia, the only other great colonial 
power, came nowhere into rivalry with France. But 
France and Great Britain had conflicting aims throughout 
the world. Great Britain's control of the seas made com- 
promises advisable at Paris. The alternative of war would 
have meant a loss of everything except Algeria, and per- 
haps even of that. The Third Republic extended France 
to the southern Pacific, Madagascar, and southeastern 
Asia, but in so doing made her dependent upon the mistress 
of the seas. The Entente Cordiale grew out of the colonial 
development of France in the first thirty years of the Third 
Republic. 



CHAPTER V 

BEITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 

OF the leading powers at the Congress of Vienna, Great 
Britain alone attached importance to questions out- 
side of Europe. The Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia, and 
Austria did not appeal to her. Since Cromwell inaugurated 
the aggressive foreign policy of England, changes in the 
governments and boundaries of European states have 
alarmed British statesmen to the point of war or threats 
of war only when the upsetting of the balance of power to 
the benefit of one country made the aspirant to domination 
in Europe a challenger of England's sea power and a rival 
of England's trade. When the object of intervention was 
attained, the British withdrew from active participation in 
continental affairs and let allies and enemies work out their 
own salvation in post-bellum reconstruction. The prece- 
dent and traditions of earher interventions were followed 
after Vienna. 

During the momentous years from 1789 to 1815 Great 
Britain won by conquest Ceylon, Trinidad* Malta , a part 
of Guiana, St. Luda^the Cape of Good Hope, S eych elles, 
Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. The Brsl^ 



settlement in Australia was made at New South Wales in 
the year before the French Revolution, and Tasmania was 
settled in 1803. As we have already seen, the conquest of 
India was pressed vigorously from 1801 to 1817. In 1815 
Nepal, although retaining its independence, was brought 
under British influence. ,,^ 

From 1815 to 1878 the growth of the British Empire was 
rapid. Except in India and China, it was not a period of 
conquest. Wars were fought only to protect claims al- 

65 



66 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ready staked out and in the process of development and to 
prevent other powers from menacing the British imperial 
trade routes by land or sea. Military prowess played its 
part, but the *' native wars" had no effect upon the rela- 
tions of the British with the continental powers. In Europe 
Great Britain's interests led her to play a negative role 
in international diplomacy from the Congress of Vienna 
to the Congress of Berlin. Among themselves the powers 
could do as they pleased. The veto of Great Britain was 
heard in international councils only when questions of 
overseas policy arose. For example, British statesman- 
ship opposed the scheme of the Holy Alliance to help Spain 
win back her American colonies in 1822-23; Eussia's inten- 
tion, without consulting the other powers, to aid the Greeks 
in 1825 and the Turks in 1833 ; France 's encouragement of 
Mehemet Ali in 1839-40; Russia's second attempt to eman- 
cipate Ottoman Christians, in 1853-55; and Russia's third 
attempt to emancipate Ottoman Christians, in 1877-78. 
With Russia and France — the only other powers that 
showed marked colonial activity — Great Britain came into 
occasional diplomatic conflict ; and from Denmark and Hol- 
land titles were acquired on the west African coast. 

The development of the British Empire in the two de- 
cades of the Napoleonic wars was due only in part to the 
factors mentioned before — geographical position, a lucky 
start all over the world, and the advance by a hundred 
years, in political unification, over rivals. There are other 
causes, material and moral, for the unique place in the 
world of the British Empire. The British had coal at tide- 
water. Their brains and energy were responsible for the 
adaptation of steam power to industry and transportation. 
They were master mariners. They won fairly the suprem- 
acy of the sea. But, most important of all, they were 
V willing to expatriate themselves, not only to fight and die 
for their country, but to settle and develop the overseas 
' territories to which they took title. The study of world 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 67 

politics leads us to put emphasis upon the obvious and least 
admirable factors in colonial expansion. We deal with in- 
ternational relations, which means the study of diplomacy, 
of chicanery, of hypocrisy, of violence. Because we have 
as yet learned no other way, might invariably goes before 
right in international affairs. Among nations, the influ- 
ence of a country is in proportion to its strength, and in 
intercourse with non-European races the British have been 
the most successful in the methods that all modem powers 
have used when they had the chance. But, as we shall 
see, the British continued to hold their own, and to extend 
their empire, after the other nations of Europe entered the 
colonial field. In the supreme test of the World War their 
titles were nowhere surrendered or transferred. Suprem- 
acy of the seas and military strength alone could not have 
accomplished this. From the beginning of her colonial ex- 
pansion, England sent abroad colonists and administrators 
who were willing to cast in their fortunes with the new 
territories to which they went. 

In the period under survey there evolved in the British 
Empire four distinct types of possessions: (1) territories 
situated in the temperate zone, where settlers from Europe 
were able to found new nations of Aryan stock; (2) terri- 
tories where Europeans already lived or to which English- 
men and Scotchmen emigrated in sufficient numbers to be- 
come the controlling element politically and economically; 
(3) protectorates and dependencies; and (4) isolated foot- 
holds, ports or islands, valuable only as coaling stations on 
trade routes. In the first category we have in the overseas 
expansion of Europe a renewal of movements of popula- 
tion such as had not taken place in the world since our 
ancestors came to Europe from Asia; in the second, a 
speedily checked effort at extensive colonization, but no 
abandonment of existing settlement, because opportunities 
arose of production for export to Europe; in the third, a 
form of extension of European eminent domain which 



68 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

would never have become profitable save for the new con- 
ditions in industry and transportation of the nineteenth 
century; and in the fourth, a means of protecting and 
facilitating communications with colonies. 

Queen Elizabeth's first patent to Sir Walter Ealeigh 
permitted British subjects to accompany him to America, 
''with guaranty of a continuance of the enjo^mient of all 
the rights which her subjects enjoyed at home." Although 
this may have meant only the assurance of non-forfeiture 
of citizenship through residence abroad, it was interpreted 
by Anglo-Saxon settlers during the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries to mean the right to carry with them 
wherever they went the privilege of self-government. 
Great Britain learned a lesson in the loss of the American 
colonies by the treaty of Paris in 1783. When the process 
of demanding responsible government began to repeat it- 
self in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, 
the colonies were allowed to federate and form self-gov- 
erning dominions. New political units thus arose, bound 
to the mother country by ties of their o\\^l volition. The 
white man's countries of the British Empire, in turn, on 
the ground of prosperity as well as security, became inter- 
ested in colonial expansion in their own parts of the world, 
and in the importance of the control of the trade routes 
leading from them to the mother country. 

The War of 1812 proved the attachment of Canada to 
Great Britain. North of the Great Lakes and the St. Law- 
rence, the English-speaking colonies had no desire to join 
the United States. The boundary between New Bruns^\dck 
and Maine, which led to frontier disturbances in 1839, was 
settled by the Webster-Ashburton treaty in 1842, while 
the Oregon treaty fixed the boundary with British Colum- 
bia in 1846. Serious and sustained friction between the 
United States and Great Britain over Canada has never 
arisen. Fishing and boundaiy disputes have always been 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 69 

adjusted by arbitration, and the overwhelming inferiority 
of the Canadians in numbers, coupled with the good-will 
between the two peoples, has made unnecessary the mili- 
tary and naval guarding of the frontier. Trade questions 
have been decided directly between the United States and 
Canada, even when negotiations were carried on through 
London. After a rebellion, in 1840, responsible govern- 
ment was granted to the Canadian colonies, and in 1867 
Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were 
confederated as the Dominion of Canada. In the same 
year the United States, by purchasing Russian America 
and forming it into the territory of Alaska, got ahead of 
the British on the Pacific coast. The Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany territory was ceded to Canada in 1870, and from the 
lower part of it Manitoba was formed. British Columbia 
joined the Dominion in 1871, stipulating that a railway 
should be built at government expense to the Pacific coast 
within ten years. Prince Edward Island entered in 1873. 
Newfoundland, the oldest British colony, with her depend- 
ency Labrador, has remained outside. 

South Africa passed through a century of varying for- 
tunes under British rule before a union of colonies could 
be formed and given self-government. In Canada the 
French remained chiefly in the province of Quebec, and 
were soon outnumbered elsewhere by the English-speaking 
elements. In south Africa the Dutch colonists, called 
Boers, were mostly irreconcilable, and when British set- 
tlers came in considerable numbers these Boers began to 
trek into the interior. In the great trek of 1836 to 1840 
they passed over the Orange and Vaal rivers. They also 
went up the east coast and wrested part of Natal from the 
Zulus. As Natal lay along the coast, the British refused 
to admit the possibility of an independent Boer state in 
that quarter. In 1843 Natal was proclaimed British terri- 
tory and erected into a colony. In the interior, however, 



y 



70 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the Boers were able to create two republics, the Orange 
Free State in 1854 and the Transvaal Republic in 1858. 
Expansion northward from the Cape, strengthened by im- 
migration, took the British into the interior and along both 
the Indian and Atlantic coasts. Boers and British alike 
had troubles with the natives. A Kaffir war in 1851, in 
which the Hottentots joined, took two years to crush. In 
1865 part of Kaffraria became British; two years later 
twelve islands off Angra Pequena were annexed; and in 
1871 Basutoland and the southeastern part of Bechuana- 
land were added to the Cape territory. In 1878 Walfisch 
Bay, the best harbor in southwest Africa, together with, a 
few miles of the coast, was annexed. Believing that the 
Transvaal Boers, after an exhausting war with the Zulus 
(in which the British themselves were engaged), were too 
weak to maintain their independence, Disraeli ordered the 
annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. But the Boers 
showed surprising strength and the British gave up the 
project for the time being. In America, English and 
French and Spanish had armed natives against white men 
in colonial wars. The overwhelming disproportion of 
numbers made the use of blacks too dangerous in the strug- 
gles between Boers and Britons. 

j The British title to Canada and South Africa is based 
upon conquest from other European peoples that had made 
prior settlement and whose colonists had to become British 
subjects. In both dominions the descendants of the origi- 
nal colonists retained their mother tongue, and, although 
accorded the privileges of English institutions, the most 
precious of which is self-government, French and Dutch 
did not become assimilated. Through their ecclesiastical 
organizations they maintained their schools, and thus kept 
alive their culture. In neither case, however, was their 
lack of assimilation due to an effort on the part of the 
country of their origin. In the nineteenth century, in so 
far as France and Holland were concerned, the French 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 71 

Canadian and Boer questions did not enter into interna- 
tional politics. 

Australia and New Zealand are British by right of dis- 
Qovery and settlement. The British went to New South 
Wales in 1788 ; began to colonize Tasmania, the island south 
of Australia, in 1803 ; established missions in New Zealand 
in 1814; colonized west Austraha in 1829 and south Aus- 
tralia in 1836 ; and began to settle in New Zealand in 1840. 
The climate of New Zealand is favorable to European colo- 
nization. The great obstacle was the hostility of the 
Maoris, whose treatment of shipwrecked sailors in the 
early days made them a terror to the white man. Mission- 
ary work was remarkably successful, and it led to the tam- 
ing of the natives to the point where colonization was not 
opposed by arms. On the contrary, a group of native chief- 
tains gave the islands to the queen of England in 1840. A 
Maori war broke out in 1864, and it took five years to 
restore peace. 

The development of colonization in Australia did not 
carry the British far into the interior of the continent. 
Except in certain places along the coast, only the south- 
eastern corner of the country is sufficiently cool and fertile 
for European settlement. But where white men could live 
the natives made virtually no opposition, and the process 
of colonization was rapid. Melbourne was founded in 1835. 
Victoria and Queensland were separated from New South 
Wales in 1851 and 1859. The discovery of gold in 1851 
aided decidedly in attracting colonists, and both Australia 
and New Zealand were brought nearer to London by the 
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the laying of a 
cable in 1872. Eesponsible government was granted to 
New Zealand in 1852, and to the Australian colonies begin- 
ning in 1855. No other power has ever tried to gain a 
foothold on the Australian continent or in New Zealand. 
Small groups of islands around the colonies were annexed 
from time to time, with the aid of the home government. 



72 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

But in no case during the period under survey did Aus- 
tralia or New Zealand cause friction among the great 
powers. 

Most of the possessions of the second category belonged 
to the British through conquest or settlement before the 
French Revolution, or became definitely British through 
the conventions and treaties of 1814 and 1815, and already 
contained a European element in their population, which 
was thus in each instance compelled to transfer its alle- 
giance. At the time of the founding of the colonies that 
later became the United States, the British also settled 
Barbados, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, and most of the 
Leeward Islands. To their West Indian possessions the 
other Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands, Tobago, and 
Trinidad were added by conquest during the wars with 
France and Spain in the second half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 
mck, St. Christopher, and Nevis, originally colonized by 
the British, were given to France in 1632 and won back by 
the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Jamaica, one of the most 
notable colonies of the second category mentioned above, 
was conquered from Spain in 1655. From the treaty of 
Vienna to the treaty of Berlin, Great Britain came into 
conflict with no other power, and laid the foundation of 
no future quarrel, by reason of her cro^\^l colonies, in which 
British planters and traders did not rely upon diplomatic 
intervention for their prosperity or security. The posses- 
sion of the island colonies of this type was not a factor of 
moment in international relations. 

The colonial acquisitions and the development of titles, 
which brought Great Britain into antagonism with other 
world powers, belong to the third and fourth categories 
and fall mthin the world politics period of histor3^ It is 
not always possible to distinguish between possessions of 
the third and fourth categories. Gibraltar, key to the 
Mediterranean, and Malta, which enables Great Britain to 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 73 

play a decisive role in Near Eastern events, were demanded 
as rewards in the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, and the treaty of 
Paris, 1814, for strategic reasons. Other bases, like Hong- 
Kong, which gives Great Britain a privileged position in 
the Far East, belong to the third as well as the fourth 
category. 

In tracing the expansion of the British Empire from 1815 
to 1878, after we have considered the groups of colonies in 
temperate climates that federated and became self-govern- 
ing dominions, British colonial activity must be treated 
from the dual point of view of creating and stimulating 
overseas markets and the carrying trade and of protecting 
the markets and the merchant marine. For themselves 
first, and then for the colonies peopled by the overflow of 
population from England and Scotland, the British sought 
security and prosperity. In buttressing the British Em- 
pire and gaining control of trade routes to all parts of the 
world, they took what they wanted, or thought they needed, 
in Asia and Africa, and opposed by diplomatic pres- 
sure and by force the expansion of every other European 
power where they felt that this expansion would jeopard- 
ize their plans for strengthening and adding to the empire. 
The dominant considerations were India and the trade 
routes from England to India, from England to the other 
colonies, and from the other colonies to India. If we bear 
these facts in mind, we shall be able to discern the motives 
and course of empire-building and of British participation 
in international affairs. 

Bombay was ceded by Ppxtugal in 1661, and I^dras, 
whicK the French held for a brief period in the middle of 
the eighteenth century, became definitely British in 1748. 
Bengal was built up by bits until virtual sovereignty was 
established by the conquest of Olive in 1765. We have 
already spoken of the energy and successes of the British 
in India during the Napoleonic era. The conquest of the 
central provinces was completed in 1817. Between 1825 



74 ; AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and 1852 Assam, Punjab, and Burma were added to British 
India. The Great Mogul surrendered the sovereignty of 
Delhi in 1832. The conquest of Ajmir-Merwara was com- 
pleted in 1818; of Coorg in 1834; and of Oudh in 1856. 

In 1857 the mutiny of the Sepoys at Meerut and the ris- 
ing of the Mohammedans at Delhi caused a radical change 
in the relations between Great Britain and India. Since 
the days of Queen Ehzabeth the expansion of Great Britain 
in India had been a commercial enterprise under the con- 
trol of a chartered corporation kno"\vn as the East India 
Company. The fiction of the Mogul Empire had been 
preserved. After the siege and capture of Delhi, in the 
summer of 1857, it was necessary to depose and banish the 
Great Mogul. The establishment of another sovereignty 
was imperative. Then, too, the maintenance and expan- 
sion of British influence in India demanded sacrifices and 
the assumption of responsibilities beyond the abilitj^ of the 
East India Company. The Afghan War, the Second Bur- 
mese War, the Crimean War, and the Sepoy Rebellion 
proved that. TJijQ__piiss£5sioiLjof-Jjidia^^vv^as Jbjegijining to 
involve the British in international comphcatious__ with 
which the g;overnment alone was in a position jo __cope. In 
1858, therefore, the government of India was transferred 
to the British crown and a viceroy was appointed. After 
twenty years, the queen of England was proclaimed Em- 
press of India, on January 1, 1877. 

In speaking of the^Bnti'sh" attitude towards the problems 
raised by the treaty of San Stefano, we quoted Disraeli's 
explanation of why British foreign policy had to adapt 
itself to the situation created in Asia by the queen's new 
responsibilities. In reaUty the pohcy went back to the 
aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and the proclamation of 
January 1, 1877, was the logical result of an evolution that 
had begun in Asia with, the last Mahratta war in 1818. 
India could be made secure only by control of the land and 
sea approaches to the Indian peninsula. The settlements 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 75 

after the downfall of Napoleon had given Great Britain 
Malta and the Ionian Islands in the Mediterranean, the 
Cape of Good Hope, the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Ceylon. 
The Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece in 1863, but 
Cyprus was occupied in 1878. Owing to changed condi- 
tions through the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez in 1869, 
Cyprus had become a vantage-point of importance. But 

/Disraeli had already taken another step to control the new 
route to India by purchasing the Khedive Ismail's shares 
in the Suez Canal Company in 1875. 

In the regions between Egypt and India, the British had 
been working with admirable foresight and energy for half 
a century before the Suez Canal was cut. Control of the 
Red Sea was secured by the occupation of Aden in 1839, 
and in the following year the East India Company pre- 
empted the opposite African coast by binding the native 
chiefs to a promise not to enter into treaty relations with 
other powers. To ne utralize other European influences the 
British were led to declare war against Abyssinia in 1868. 
T^e king was kiHedM heir taken captive to England, 

where he died. In 1873 the sultan of Zanzibar made a 
treaty with the British, and in 1877 London recognized 
Egyptian jurisdiction over Somaliland, provided that no 
territories of Egypt *'be ceded on any pretext whatever to 
a foreign power." 

TIiej)ccupaJiim.,Ql.Ad£n was preceded and followed by 
diplomatic activity, made possible through cooperation of 
the navy, around the Arabian peninsula. The first treaty 
of peace with Arab chiefs of the Persian Gulf was made 
in 1820. It was reaffirmed in 1853, and in 1861, despite 
the violent protest of Turkey, the sheik of Bahrein put 
himself under British protection. In 1854 the sultan of 
Muscat ceded the Kuria Muria Islands, and in 1876 the 
sultan of Kishin gave Sokotra to the British. In all agree- 
ments with the Eed Sea and Persian G:ulf chiefs there, was 
thesa]^,Id^3lg.^,j,amjaly^JJi^lji£^ 



76 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

neg otiations be e ntered into with any European power 
Qtiier than Great Britain without the consent of the gov- 
ernment of India. When Napoleon III was at the height 
of his power, in 1862, Great Britain agreed mth France 
to respect the independence of Muscat and Zanzibar. But 
eleven years later the sultan of Muscat accepted a British 
subsidy, and Zanzibar eventually came under British pro- 
tection. The government of India was virtually master 
of the Persian Gulf, and had extended its influence along 
the Arabian sea-coast of Persia before the Russo-Turkish 
War of 1877. The effort to shut Eussia off from the 
Indian Ocean and from the countries conti^'uous to India 
required two serious wars with Afghanistan, in 1839-12 
^gT^78-SD7 a war mth Persia in 1856-57; the extension 
of British control to the northwest- frontier; and tho estab- 
lishment of a protectorate over Baluchistan. In the cam- 
*paign of 1839 against the Afghans the British felt that it 
was necessary to protect the flank of their expedition by 
seizing Kalat. A treaty was signed with the khan of Kalat 
in 1840 and renewed in 1854 and 1876. The first was sim- 
ply a defensive treaty, the second an offensive and defen- 
sive alliance, mth a subsidy for the khan, and the third 
allowed the British the right of intervention and gave them 
the northeastern corner of Baluchistan, where Quetta be- 
came a strong fortress, linked with Karachi by rail, to 
^erve to .watcii_tlifi. future, xelations between Afghans and 
]^tnssians. 

On the eastern side of India the British began to extend 
their influence in 1824 by invading Burma, which was iinally 
atiiifxcd arici- the cai)ture of Eangoon in 1852. The leas- — 
ing of the island -.of. Siiigai)()re from the sultan ofJokore 
in.^3824 was a master stioke of far-sightedness. When 
Hon,'-:-I\"i!-- was addc'd sixteen years later by conq.UQst 
iioiii ('hiiia, the British had laid the foundation for un- 
rivaled naval and mercantile supremacy from Illngland to 
the Far East, both l)y the Mediterranean and by the Cape 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 77 

of Good Hope. The various sultanates between the end of 
the Malay peninsula and Burma were gradually incorpo- 
rated in the British Empire by treaties with the Malay 
sovereigns and Siam. Along the sea route, the Andaman 
Islands were annexed in 1858; Labuan was occupied, de- 
spite the protest of Spain and Holland, in 1847; and a 
foothold was obtained on the northern tip of Borneo in 
1878 by a treaty between the Labuan Trading Company 
and the sultan of Sulu. 

On the northern side of India the British secured the 
right to maintain a liifisLdeiLLiaJSIepal by the treaty of 
gegowlie ^J,SX5, and Ghurkas had been recruited for the 
Indian army. In 1864 eleven provinces of Bhutan were 
annexed to Bengal, and in the following year the Bhutan 
government accepted a subsidy from Calcutta. It has been 
under virtual British control ever since. Attempts were 
made to open up trade between India and Tibet in 1872 
and 1873. But, as Tibet belonged nominally to China, an 
agreement was made at C hefoo in 18 76 between China and 
Great Britain for exploration in this country, in which the 
British greatly feared the penetration of Russian influence. 
Tibetan fanaticism prevented British and Russians alike 
from exploration and propaganda. 'Jh^remoteness^of Jlie 
country m_ade„.c^lLa3ie£i..Jb:y^-a£msJLmfM:ajcti£^le . 

The development of Australia and New Zealand, the 
founding of British Columbia, the increasing importance 
of Hong-Kong and Singapore, and especially the invention 
of marine telegraph communication, caused the British to 
realize, during the last decade of the period under survey, 
the advisability of the extension of their sovereignty over 
islands in the Pacific. The convention of London, in 1814, 
had left the East Indies to the Dutch, and the Philippines 
had not been taken from Spain. British exploration, 
notably the voyage of Captain Cook, did much to make the 
Pacific islands known to Europe. The first actual British 
possession in the Pacific was Pitcairn Island, annexed in 



78 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

1838. A naval captain hoisted the British flag over the 
Hawaiian Islands in 1843, but the act was disavowed by- 
London. A foothold was secured on the south coast of 
New Guinea, owing to proximity to Australia, in 1846, and 
the earlier settlers of New Zealand gathered in the islands 
in their general neighborhood. Until the era of cables, 
however, nobody was much concerned about the more re- 
mote Pacific archipelagos, whose exploitation would bring 
little profit. 

The first important step in the extension of the Brit- 
ish Empire to Oceania was the annexation of the Fiji 
Islands in 1874. France, who had just begun active 
empire-building in Indo-China, had been picking up Pacific 
islands since 1840. The French were well estabhshed in 
New Caledonia and the South Sea islands. In the year 
follomng the British coup in the Fijis, the British and 
French began to colonize — or, rather, to pay attention to 
their missionary work — in the New Hebrides. John Paton, 
a Scotch missionary, proposed to make the New Hebrides 
British in 1877. But the French protested. On the other 
hand, the British were able to take advantage of this claim 
and others that they were mlling to forego, to secure inter- 
national assent to the annexation of Union, Ellice, Gilbert, 
southern Solomon, and other groups, over which they had 
discovery and trading claims that had never been pressed. 
The agreement of 1877 established the British Empire on 
a wide and firm basis in the mid-Pacific. 

In the earlier days, before the interior of Africa was ex- 
plored and before the great value of African raw materials 
became apparent, the British did little to extend the colo- 
nies which they had acquired on the way to the Cape of 
Good Hope. But their activities along the west African 
coast, in connection with the suppression of the slave trade, 
accomplished valuable foundation work for the future. We 
have already seen how Sierra Leone was made a crown 
colony in 1808, and how the transfers of territory at the 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 79 

end of the Napoleonic wars led to new frontiers for Gam- 
bia and the founding of Bathurst in 1816. The French 
withdrew from Gambia finally in 1857, but without a defi- 
nite delimitation of frontiers. In the meantime France 
was developing the Senegal settlements that had been re- 
turned to her in 1817. In 1831 British explorers and mer- 
chants began to discover the potentialities of the Niger 
Valley. The Gold Coast forts were taken over by the 
crown in 1843, Danish rights were acquired in 1850, and 
Dutch rights in 1871. This led to the Ashanti War in 
1873-74, when the king was compelled to acknowledge Great 
Britain's supremacy on the coast. Lagos Island was seized 
in 1861, and the United Africa Company was founded in 
1879, with the object of developing British trade at the 
expense of less united rivals. It was just in time to get 
ahead of the Germans and French, the latter backed by 
their government. 

British enterprise in the interior of Africa also prepared 
the way for the expansion of a later period. Livingstone 
discovered Lake Nyasa in 1859, and Stanley reached 
Uganda in 1875. The African Lakes Corporation was 
founded in 1878. The first maps of these regions were 
hardly drawn when British missionaries, who had been 
working successfully in Zanzibar, penetrated the African 
continent. At the same time Baker and Gordon, in the 
employ of the Egyptian khedive Ismail, explored, fought 
for, and established administrative control over the Sudan. 
These activities were to bear fruit for Great Britain later. 

In America, the three colonies taken from Holland on the 
Sou th A merican co^st ^ sout h of .Venezuela, were organized 
into British Guian a. With the remainder of the Dutch 
possessions and French Guiana beyond, this constituted 
the only European title on the continent of South America. 
The boundary on the north with Venezuela had never been 
definitely settled, and after eighty years it almost brought 
Great Britain into conflict with the United States. A sev- 



80 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

enteenth-century settlement of British log-cutters on the 
west coast of Central America had an indefinite political 
status until 1860, when Great Britain surrendered a part 
of her claims there to the republics of Honduras and Nica- 
ragua. British Honduras was declared a colony under 
the governor of Jamaica in 1862, and was made a croA\Ti 
colony in 1870. Giving to Britain's large interests in the 
West Indies and the Caribbean Sea, the Foreign Office had, 
for a long time before the final Honduras settlement, been 
claiming virtually all of the Nicaraguan coast. When the 
United States was negotiating for canal rights, made im- 
portant by the annexation of California in 1848, the vague 
British claims had blocked her effort. The British were in 
possession of a settlement called GreytoAvn, which was at 
the mouth of the San Juan Eiver, the proposed Atlantic ter- 
minus of the canal. This de facto advantage was given up 
when the United States agreed, in the Claj^ton-Bulwer 
treaty of 1850, to renounce exclusive control over the canal ; 
not to fortify it ; to neutralize it ; to maintain equal tolls for 
all nations ; and not to colonize in, or establish a protec- 
torate over, or make an exclusive alliance with, Nicaragua, 
Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any other Central 
American state. "When the American Civil War broke out 
Great Britain agreed with France and Spain to intervene in 
Mexico. But Great Britain and Spain withdrew when 
France declared war upon Mexico in the following year. 

Our summary of British colonial expansion from 1815 to 
1878 has tended to be a mere chronicle of events, with a 
monotonous succession of names and dates. Limitation of 
space has compelled us to resist the temptation of trying to 
explain the cross-currents of opinion in England concern- 
ing colonial expansion. The building up of the British Em- 
pire, as we have traced it, was not accomplished without 
opposition, or vdth any universal expectation of the results 
that have actually cro^vned the work of the empire-builders. 
For some years before the Crimean War, and with in- 



BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION (1815-1878) 81 

creased energy after the blunders and sacrifices of the 
Crimean expedition, the Liberals of the Manchester school 
advanced the thesis that self-governing institutions in the 
colonies were a preliminary to separation. Why should 
the English people consent to an almost endless succession 
of colonial wars to add to the empire? And why should 
this incessant activity overseas be allowed to disturb Great 
Britain's friendly relations with the continental European 
powers? In their opposition to the new economic impe- 
rialism, the Liberals did not sound the humanitarian note 
alone. They questioned the value to the United Kingdom 
' I of colonial expansion, and they believed that the world- 
I encircling structure, built at so great a cost, would not 
prove durable. 

On the other hand, while British statesmen were using 
diplomacy and force to defend and develop old rights and 
acquire new ones, they were able to point out to the British 
people moral and material progress in the relations of 
Great Britain with the ever-expanding possessions in all 
parts of the world. Slavery in the colonies was abolished 
in 1834; the old navigation laws were repealed in 1849; 
differential duties in favor of colonial products were re- 
moved in 1860; and the Royal Colonial Institution was 
founded in 1868. 

The new impulsion to British imperial development came 
witl^Ljthe increase of influence of Benjamin Disraeli, later 
LordJBBaee^Hrsfield. As early as 1866, two years before his 
first premiership, Disraeli said that England was now 
''more of an Asiatic than a European power." He em- 
phasized — as did Joseph Chamberlain thirty years later — 
the glorious future of the British Empire if it were held 
together as a political system and extended in such a way 
that it would function to the advantage of all its parts the 
world over. In 1872 Disraeli declared that "no minister 
in this country will do his duty who neglects any oppor- 
tunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial 



82 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies 
which may become the source of incalculable strength and 
happiness to this island." Believing that the privileges of 
empire were worth the responsibilities, as prime minister 
Beaconsfield assumed the responsibilities. His successors 
could not get away from them. 



CHAPTER VI 

qONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER IN THE NEAR EAST 

(1878-1885) 

DURIN^ the nineteenth century was J.£yj-loped the 
British policy of becoming mistress of eyery ap- 
proach to India by land and sea. In point of fact, the policy 
was largely miconscious and instinctive. But the result 
was as logical an evolution towards a goal as if every step 
had been thought out. In tracing British colonial expan- 
sion from the Congress of Vienna (1815) to the Congress 
of Berlin (1878), we have shown how British diplomacy, 
backed unhesitatingly by force whenever necessary, en- 
deavored to safeguard India and to gain a monopoly of 
the routes to India. The method was threefold: (1) to_s,e- 
cure sovereignty over vantage-points on mainland or 
islands, strategically placed for dominating ocean thor- 
oughfares and for coaling stations and naval bases; (2) to 
extend political and economic control over the countries 
l^dering on India and those through which any other 
European power might reach waterways leading to India ; 
and (3) t^ frustrate the attempts of other European pow- 
ersjjo- secure preponderant political influence or economic 
position in any country bordering on India or along the 
water routes to India. 

Prior to the Congress of Berlin, British statesmen had 
believed that the negative method of forbidding others to 
trespass was the best means of safeguarding the approaches 
to India in the Near East. In eighty years their efforts 
to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had pro- 
duced two wars and two threats of wars. France was 
fought in Egypt at the beginning of the century, and the 

83 



84 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

British were ready to enter into another war with her at 
the time of Mehemet AU's second attack npon Turkey in 
1839-40. Russia was fought in the Crimea in the middle 
of the century, and the British were ready to enter into 
another war when the czar's ministers imposed the treaty 
of San Stefano upon Turkey" in 1878. 

During tlie two decades between the Congress of Paris, 
which followed the Crimean War, and the Congress of Ber- 
lin, which followed the Russo-Turkish War, changes in the 
political aspects of the Near Eastern question made it ad- 
visable to abandon the tactics of merely opposing the in- 
trigues of continental European powers in the Ottoman Em- 
pire and its dependencies. British public opinion, suscep- 
tible to the appeal of suffering humanity to the point of 
overthrowing a cabinet, was becoming less credulous of 
Turkish promises to reform. When the Crimean War was 
fought it was believed that Turkey had not been given a 
chance to show how she could behave in her relations mth 
her Christian subjects. But the revelations of Turkish mas- 
sacres in the Balkans in 1875-76, which Mr. Gladstone cap- 
italized in his opposition to the foreign policy of the Dis- 
raeli cabinet, proved to Conservative and Liberal states- 
men ahke the impossibility of continuing the unconditional 
championship of the sovereignty and territorial integrity 
of the sultan's dominions. 

Whatever treaties might say concerning the suzerainty 
or sovereignty of the sultan, it was clear that the Balkan 
peoples were no longer to be checkmated in their struggles 
for independent national existence. The Balkan peoples 
belonged to the Orthodox Church, and part of them were 
of Slavic blood. The Congress of Berlin had revised the 
treaty of San Stefano, which proposed to create a Bulgaria 
that would include a large part of Macedonia and Thrace ; 
but nothing could take away from Russia, so British 
statesmen felt, the advaiilages of kinship and common re- 
ligion enjoyed in the Balkans. 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885) 85 

The treaty of Berlin was a setback for Eussian aspira- 
tions in the Balkans. But it did not deprive Russia of any 
material portion of her territorial gains at the expense of 
Turkey in Asia. By article LVIII Russia secured the ter- 
ritories of Ardahan, Kars, and Batum, and thus came into 
possession of northern Persia's trade route to the outer 
world. Control of Batum made feasible, too, railroad de- 
velopment into central Asia, which would bring Russia 
to the frontiers of Afghanistan. 

The Suez Canal created a new problem for British di- 
plomacy. When Egl-dinand de Lesseps, who had obtained 
a concession for the canal from Said Pasha, viceroy of 
Egypt, failed to secure the necessary confirmation of the 
sultan of Turkey, he realized that the British were in- 
triguing against him. He went to London to induce the 
British government to withdraw its opposition. Lord 
Palmerston told him that the canal was a physical impos- 
sibility, that if it could be dug it would injure British 
maritime supremacy, and that the proposal was a device 
for French interference in the Near East. Despite British 
hostility and the refusal of London bankers to cooperate 
in financing the project, de Lesseps carried it to a success- 
ful completion. The canal was opened in 1869, and within 
a few years it became self-supporting. In 1875, by excel- 
lent statesmanship taking advantage of a lucky oppor- 
tunity, the British government purchased the shares of 
Ithe Egyptian khedive and became the largest stockholder 
in the Suez Canal Company. The new trade route through 
Egypt and the Red Sea suddenly increased immeasurably 
the importance of the Near East in British imperial policy. 

To recapitulate, after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 
the traditional British policy of supporting the integrity 
of the sultan's dominions was abandoned because: main- 
tenance of the old policy had become a serious political 
risk for a cabinet; tangible compensation must be sought 
within the Ottoman Empire to offset the Russian influence 



86 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

in the Balkans and the Russian menace in central Asia; 
and the Suez Canal, which in a few years had become a 
vital artery to the British Empire, must be brought under 
British military control. 

The consolidation of British power in the Near East, 
which resulted in checking Russian penetration into Ar- 
menia and Afghanistan and in ousting French influence 
from Egypt, was accompUshed by the Cj^rus convention, 
:the Second Afghan War, and the military occupation of 
iEgjTDt. The Cyprus convention was a defensive alliance 
between Great Britain and Turkey mth respect to the 
Asiatic provinces of Turkey. Although signed on June 4, 
1878, nine days before the Congress of Berlin met, it was 
not communicated to the powers until after their represen- 
tatives had begun the work of revising the treaty of San 
Stefano. The convention contained only one article, which 
read: 

*'If Batum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be re- 
tained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be made at any 
future time by Russia to take possession of further terri- 
tories of H. I. M. the Sultan in Asia as fixed by the Defini- 
tive Treaty of Peace, England engages to join H. I. M. 
the Sultan in defending them by force of arms. 

*'In return, H. I. M. the Sultan promises to England to 
introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later be- 
tween the two Powers, into the Government and for the 
protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte 
in those territories. And in order to enable England to 
make necessary provision for executing her engagements, 
H. I. M. the Sultan further consents to assign the Island 
of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England." 

In an annex, added July 1, 1878, the permanency of the 
British title was made more definite by the provision "that, 
if Russia restores to Turkey Kars and the other conquests 
made by her in Armenia during the last war, the Island of 
Cyprus will be evacuated by England and the Convention 
of June 4, 1878, will be at an end." 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885) 87 

Of course, it was known that the Eussians had no inten- 
tion of giving back to Turkey the territories mentioned in 
the convention and its annex. The Cyprus convention was 
an acknowledgment of the abandonment of the policy of 
maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and it 
substituted the policy of compensation, which was in the 
next generation to become the accepted rule in dealing with 
China and any other state unable to defend itself. A Euro- 
pean power protests against the violation of a weak state 's 
territorial integrity by another European power; but, un- 
able or unwilling to prevent it, the protesting power makes 
an academic profession of the intention of protecting the 
despoiled state, in return for which it receives some other 
portion of the victim's territory. 

Following the Cyprus convention, Great Britain had to 
compensate France for the extension of British power in 
the Mediterranean. This was done by an agreement be- 
tween Salisbury and Waddington, who represented France 
at the Congress of Berlin, that Great Britain's occupation 
of Cyprus would be accepted by France and France would 
be given a free hand in Tunisia. This policy, also, was to 
become common usage in world politics. Powers would ac- 
cept as accomplished facts — faits accomplis, in the lan- 
guage of diplomacy — acts of aggression against weak 
states, in return for the assurance that similar acts con- 
templated by them would not be opposed. 

Because Afghanistan does not belong geographically to 
the Near East, and because British diplomacy and military 
intervention in Afghanistan, as well as in Persia and the 
Persian Gulf, has been managed from India, little if any 
mention is made of this country in books dealing with the 
Near East. The jurisdiction of the government of India 
has been extended as far west as Aden, at the entrance of 
the Red Sea.^ But it is difl&cult to exclude Afghanistan 

* For this reason, during the earlier stages of the recent World War, the mili- 
tary operations of the British in Mesopotamia were directed from India. 



88 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

from a survey of the development of British power in the 
Near East. This is especially true of the years inunedi- 
ately following the Congress of Berlin. Afghanistan af- 
fected Persia, and Persia affected Turkey. Along the line 
from the Balkans to the Himalayas the relations between 
Great Britain and Russia must be studied as a whole. 

Hence Ave find that when the British stopped the Rus- 
sians at the gates of Constantinople and held up-the.- exe- 
cution of the treaty of San Stefano, the Russians sent an 
envoy into Afghanistan to make a treaty mth the.. amir. 
The rivalry between Great Britain and Russia for the con- 
trol of Afghanistan, which had begun forty years earlier, 
was not discussed at the Congress of Berlin. The British 
refused to allow the status of Afghanistan to become an 
international problem and contended that the Afghans, be- 
cause their country bordered on India, must ally them- 
selves solely with Great Britain. In November, 1878, when 
a British envoj^ sent to the amir for the purpose of con- 
cluding such an alHance was turned back at the frontier, 
the British declared war and invaded Afghanistan. 

After a vigorous mnter campaign the invaders were able 
to put upon the throne at Kabul one of the amir's sons, who 
signed a treaty transferring parts of the provinces bor- 
(/ dering on India to Great Britain, and agreeing to place in 
the hands of the British government the entire control of 
his foreign relations. To prevent future Russian intrigue, 
the new amir was compelled to accept a permanent British 
legation at Kabul. The Afghans, however, murdered the 
British envoj^, with his staff and escort. The war began 
again, and the British occupied Kabul. Another member 
of the ruling family, who had been in exile, was induced to 
return to Kabul, and was made amir in return for the rec- 
ognition of Britain's exclusive right to control the foreign 
affairs of Afghanistan. British troops, however, had to be 
used until the end of 1881 to defend the new amir, in a civil 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885) 89 

war that proved long and costly, against other claimants to 
the throne. 

Public opinion in England had hailed Lord Beaconsfield 
as a statesman who won great advantages without blood- 
shed through the revision of the treaty of San Stefano and 
the Cyprus convention, and then turned against him within 
two years after the ratification of the treaty of Berlin. 
For British diplomatic and military prestige had suffered 
a severe blow in south Africa. In 1879 the Zulus completely 
defeated a British army and the Boers refused to accept 
the annexation of the Transvaal. Beaconsfield had also to 
shoulder the burden of the unsatisfactory Afghan war, with 
its repeated surprises and reverses. He went out of office 
in April, 1880, after an electoral campaign in which Glad- 
stone, referring to Cyprus and the Transvaal, said: ^tJ£ 
those acquisitions were as valuable as they are valueless, 
I would repudiate them, because they were obtained by 
means dishonorable to- the character of our country. ' ' 

For a second time Gladstone succeeded Beaconsfield. 
During the six years (1874-80) that Gladstone sat on the 
Opposition front bench, he had consistently criticized the 
foreign policy of Beaconsfield. He had denounced eco- 
nomic imperialism, deplored the use of British troops in 
Asia and Africa, declared that the methods of British di- 
plomacy were un-English, and reiterated in and out of 
Parliament his belief that it was bad morals as well as bad 
business for a free people like the British to endeavor to 
take away the freedom of other peoples. And yet, as^prime 
minister, Gladstone found that, irrespective of what he 
might say in speeches, he was powerless to limit or arrest 
the extension and consolidation of Britain's overseas em- 
pire. His great Liberal following supported him and kept 
him in office until 1885. It gave assent in press and Par- 
liament, and from pulpit and platform, to the prime min- 
ister's Golden Rule idealism: in foreign policy, only what 



90 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

was right was wise! Nevertheless this sentiment did not 
translate itself into a reversal of the foreign policy that 
had been denounced. On the contrary, the Foreign Office 
continued to use the army and navy, as before, to maintain 
the existing British possessions and spheres of influence, 
and even to add to the empire.^ 

The Eg\T)tian national debt was begun by Said Pasha, 
son of Mehemet Ali, who borrowed from London bankers 
a little more than $16,000,000, at a discount of twenty per 
cent. Said, and his nephew Ismail, who succeeded him in 
1863, found it easy to float loans through European bankers 
at ruinous rates like this. Some of the money was spent on 
public works (contracts were often awarded, without com- 
petitive bidding, to the financial groups that loaned the 
money), but much of it was squandered. It took only twenty 
years for Egypt to become bankrupt. In 1875 Ismail Pasha 
had to sell out everything he owned to satisfy his creditors, 
and in this way the British government secured his Suez 
Canal shares for a cash payment — none of which went to 
Egypt — that was scarcely more than the premium paid to 
London bankers for the first small Egyptian loan. In 1876, 
to assure the payment of interest to European bondholders, 
international control was established over most of the 
revenues of Egypt. Later in the same year the British and 
French established a dual control of Egyptian finances. 
The railroads and the port of Alexandria were interna- 
tionalized. 

Khedive Ismail in 1879 attempted to rid Egypt of foreign 
intervention and was promptly deposed. France and 
Great Britain put his nephew Tewfik Pasha on the throne, 

* During the second Gladstone ministry the Afghan and Boer wars were 
continued; Lord Salisbury's encouragement to France to invade Tunisia was 
not repudiated; British power was firmly established in Cyprus; the North 
Borneo Company was given a royal charter; Basutoland and Bechuanaland 
were placed under British protection; Tenibuland was annexed; and the 
British government adopted as bellicose an attitude towards Russian aggression 
on the Afglian frontier in tlie early spring of 1885 as it had done towards the 
Russian advance on Constantinople under the Beaconsfield ministry. 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885] 91 

and reestablished the dual control. In 1882 the Egyptians 
revolted against the conditions under which they were 
living. They were led by agitators to believe that the mis- 
government and heavy taxation from which they were suf- 
fering were due to the intervention of Europeans, who alone 
were enjoying the benefits of the new canal, of the railroads, 
and of the commerce of Alexandria. Egyptian labor and 
Egyptian money had dug the canal, built the port, and made 
the railroads. Arabi Pasha, leader of the anti-foreign 
movement, compelled the khedive, who had no force to op- 
pose him, to make him a member of the cabinet. A mas- 
sacre of foreigners in Alexandria on June 11, 1882, led to 
a bombardment of the port by the British fleet. The French 
fleet, which had come to Alexandria simultaneously with the 
British, refrained from taking part in the demonstration. 

Pressure was brought to bear upon the sultan of Tur- 
key, suzerain of Egypt, to send troops there to put down 
the insurrection. If the anti-foreign movement was suc- 
cessful, European concessions and investments, not to 
speak of the interest on the national debt, would be made 
valueless. When the sultan refused, the British govern- 
ment invited France, and then Italy, to take part in a 
military expedition *'to restore the khedive 's authority." 
France and Italy declined. A strong British force was 
landed in the Suez Canal. The Egyptians were routed at 
Tel-el-Kebir on September 13, 1882. Arabi Pasha was de- 
ported to Ceylon. The British authorities assured the 
khedive that they wanted only to restore order by means 
of making secure an Egyptian government under the con- 
trol of the khedive. 

The military occupation was announced to the people of 
Egypt as temporary, and the promise was given that the 
troops would be withdrawn as soon as tranquillity was re- 
established. Similar assurances were given to the sultan 
by the British ambassador at Constantinople, and to the 
European powers by the British Foreign Office. Gladstone 



92 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

informed Parliament that there was no intention to remain 
in Egypt, because this ' 'would be absolutely at variance with 
all the principles of Her Majesty's government and the 
pledges we have given Europe." A year later Gladstone 
told Parliament that the British government deplored the 
talk in jDolitical and colonial circles about holding Egypt. 
While explaining that circumstances did not permit the 
immediate withdrawal of the army of occupation, he de- 
clared that the idea of staying in Egypt was repugnant to 
the government. He concluded his speech with the follow- 
ing statement against the agitation to hold Egypt : 

**We are against it on the ground of the interests of Eng- 
land ; we are against it on the ground of our duty to Egypt ; 
we are against it on the ground of the specific and solemn 
pledges given the world in the most solenm manner and 
under the most critical circumstances, pledges which have 
earned for us the confidence of Europe during the course 
of difficult and delicate operations, and which, if one pledge 
can be more solemn and sacred than another, special sacred- 
ness in this case binds us to observe." 

Gladstone undoubtedly believed what he said. He needed 
to give this assurance especially to the French, who, al- 
though it was their own fault that they had not participated 
in the suppression of Arabi Pasha's revolt, were loud in 
their condemnation of what they called British hypocrisy 
and a scheme to annex Eg}3)t. The assurances of Glad- 
stone did not satisfy the French government, which pro- 
tested formally against the abolition of the dual control by 
the khcdive in January, 1883. For twenty years the French 
made trouble for the British in Egypt and encouraged the 
nationalist movement. After having financed and dug the 
canal and having for over half a century enjoyed a privi- 
leged position, the French could not reconcik* themselves to 
seeing others reap where they had sown. The occupation 
of_ Egypt turned France- against Great Britain in every 
part ofjhe-w^rkl, and it wa^s_ nojLmvtii_19Qi that the French 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885) 93 

government, in exchange for a, frBe-Jb.and,in M ac- 

knowled^ed the new status quo on the Nile. 

The occupation of Egypt greatly increased British in- 
terest in the problem of the Sudan and made possible the 
developments that fifteen years later brought fame to 
Kitchener and added a million square miles to British hold- 
ings in Africa. From the southern border of Egypt to the 
equator, the country containing the Nile, to its head- 
waters in Lake Albert Nyanza, is now called the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan. This vast territory, which owed only a 
nominal allegiance to Turkey, was brought under Egyp- 
tian rule by Mehemet Ali, who gave the country an outlet 
to the Red Sea by leasing from the sultan the ports of Sua- 
kim and Massawa. The authority of the successors of 
Mehemet Ali was contested by the Sudanese, however, 
when an attempt was made to break up the slave trade. 
From 1869 to 1882 five European soldiers of fortune played 
the principal roles in the Sudan, as employees of the khe- 
dive. Baker and Gordon, the former of whom had a Hun- 
garian wife, were Englishmen of energy and ability and 
of unusual personality. Schnitzer (Emin Pasha) was a 
German naturalist, Rudolf Slatin an Austrian in his early 
twenties, and Romolo Gessi an Italian. These men were 
remarkably successful in military expeditions and in ex- 
tending an administrative control really more their own 
than that of their employer. Gordon, the commanding 
figure after the retirement of Sir Samuel Baker, was an 
officer in the British army, and entered the service of the 
khedive with the consent of his government. 

The Arabi Pasha revolt in Egypt occurred at the same 
time as an uprising against the Egyptian government in 
the Sudan. Mohammed Ahmed, a holy man who felt that 
he had been insulted by some official, proclaimed himself 
the successor of the Prophet, or Mahdi. As Cairo was im- 
potent, with the larger part of its army preparing to oppose 
British intervention, no troops could be sent to put down 



94 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the movement, which was spreading like wild-fire. After 
they entered Cairo the British failed to pay attention to 
the Sudan insurrection. Only after some months did the 
Gladstone government agree to allow an Egyptian army, 
under the command of a British officer. Colonel Hicks, to 
move against the Mahdi. Hicks was defeated and killed 
in November, 1883, and the next month the Mahdi captured 
Slatin in Darfur. This led the Gladstone ministry to de- 
cide that Egypt must evacuate the Sudan. The British 
were unwilling to aid in the pacification of the Mahdi, and 
financial interests vetoed the spending by the Egj^Dtian 
government of the large sums that a military expedition 
would have demanded. 

Public opinion in England, however, quickly realized that 
this entailed a responsibility for the safe withdrawal of 
Egyptian officials and their families, and of military garri- 
sons still resisting the Mahdi. General Gordon, whose 
earlier exploits in the Sudan and elsewhere had fired the 
imagination of the English, was intrusted mth the task of 
an honorable evacuation, that is, of seeing that none should 
be left behind at the mercy of the Mahdi. Gordon arrived 
in Khartum in February, 1884. He succeeded in getting 
out most of the women and children before the lines of 
communication mth Egypt were cut. From March, 188-4, 
to January, 1885, Gordon, besieged in Ivhartum, held out 
against the Mahdi. Although powerful influences in press 
and Parliament were clamoring for immediate intervention 
of a British army, for some months nothing was done to 
send him relief. On January 28, 1885, when the British 
column reached Khartum, they found that the to^^^l had 
been captured two days earlier and its garrison killed. 
There was nothing to do but retire. 

The death of Gordon made a lasting impression in Eng- 
land. Owing to the uncertainty of the British position in 
Eg}T)t, nothing was done immediately to avenge him. More 
than a decade later, when the temporary occupation had 



BRITISH POWER IN NEAR EAST (1878-1885) 95 

continued long enough to become a fait accompli, economic 
as well as political considerations compelled the British 
government to turn its attention to the pacification of the 
Sudan. What these considerations were, we shall see later. 
But, in the minds of the British people, their title to the 
Sudan, even though they were not in actual possession, 
could not be contested by any other European power. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NEAE EASTEEN QUESTION (1879-1908) 

RADETSKY, in his memoirs, summed up the attitude 
of Russia towards the Ottoman Empire in words tliat 
give the key to the Eastern question during the nineteenth 
century : 

i " Owing to her geographical position, Russia is the nat- 
[ural and eternal enemy of Turkey. . . . Russia must 
Itherefore do all she can to take possession of Constanti- 
jnople, for its possession alone will grant to her the security 
and territorial completeness necessary for her future." 

Three times during the century Russia endeavored to 
destroy the Ottoman Empire so that she might gain control 
of the exit to the ^gean Sea and extend her sphere of in- 
fluence to the Adriatic through the BaUvans and to the 
Mediterranean through Armenia. In each of the three 
wars— 1828::29, 18M-55, laiTJfS— Turkey was saved by the 
intervention of other European powers. 

The most consistent opponent of the Russian ambition to 
expand at the expense of Turkey was Great Britain. In 
every crisis in the Near East, British statesmen opposed 
Russian policy. They were determined not to have the 
Russian navy in the Mediterranean, and they feared that 
the interest of Russia in the oppressed Christian subjects 
of Turkey was political rather than humanitarian. But 
the)' had to reckon with public opinion at home, which was 
loath to see Britain in defense of the integrity of the 
Ottoman Empire, stifling the aspirations of the Balkan 
peoples, and subjecting the Armenians and other Chris- 
tians of Asiatic Turkey to servitude and the danger of mas- 

96 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 97 

sacre. Hence the British government kept insisting that 
Turkey treat fairly the non-Moslem elements of the empire. 

France and Austria also attempted to prevent any ag- 
grandizement of Russia in the Balkans and Armenia, and 
to thwart the various efforts made by the Muscovite gov- 
ernment to secure special privileges within the Ottoman 
Empire. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century 
France had enjoyed the position of protectress of the Catho- 
lics under Turkish rule, and had been able to use the rights 
granted her in treaties to spread the French language in 
Turkey through the schools of religious orders. The cul- 
tural hold of France on the Ottoman Empire promoted 
commerce, and the French government was suspicious of 
the rise of nationalism among the Christians of Turkey, 
most of whom belonged to the Orthodox Church. Ruma- 
nians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Greeks, and 
Christian Arabs professed the same faith as the Russians, 
while most of the Armenians belonged to an independent 
church more closely affiliated with the Orthodox than the 
Roman communion. The triumph of nationalism among 
the Christians of the Ottoman Empire, therefore, seemed 
bound to work to the disadvantage of France and the ad- 
vantage of Russia. 

Austria's interest in the Ottoman Empire was, like the 
interest of Russia, that of a neighboring state which hoped 
to benefit territorially through the weakness of the Turks, 
but, if that were impossible, was determined that the other 
neighbor should not profit. The Balkan part of the Eastern 
question became a struggle between Russia and Austria for 
political control, or, if that could not be achieved, for para- 
mount interest in the Balkan peninsula. The revolt of the 
Balkan peoples against Turkey, furthermore, created a 
unique danger for Austria. The Hapsburg empire con- 
tained a large element akin in blood to one of the Balkan 
peoples and affiliated with them in language and history. 
In the duel Russia made use of this weapon to destroy the 



98 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Hapsburg empire. Austria attempted to minimize the 
danger, and was led from one diplomatic move to another 
until she finally decided to stake the existence of the empire 
in an effort to wrest the weapon of Serbian nationalism 
from Russia's hands. 

The Eastern question had long been a dominant factor in 
disturbing international relations before Italy and Ger- 
many completed their unification and became great powers. 
During the period of unification in Italy Cavour joined 
Great Britain and France in the Crimean War and sent an 
army from Piedmont to aid the western powers in de- 
fending Turkey from Russia. Cavour wanted to gain for 
Piedmont the right of representation in the international 
conference that would follow the war, and he looked for- 
ward to an alliance with France against Austria. But then, 
and later, the Italians realized that Russian control of the 
Slavs of the Balkans would be scarcely less dangerous to 
their future than Austrian control; hence they followed 
the policy of helping neither antagonist against the other. 
Most Italian statesmen, however, have shown the same 
disinclination to allow Russia to become a Mediterranean 
power as have British and French statesmen. Omng to 
the geographical position of Italy, also, they have felt that 
their security and their commercial interests were best 
served by opposing the aspirations of the Balkan peoples, 
especially those of Greece. 

The entrance of Germany into Balkan politics, which 
occurred during the period under survey in this chapter, 
caused a metamorphosis in the Near Eastern policies of 
the powers. The changes in diplomatic combinations were 
gradual, and in some measure due to influences and the 
evolution of interests that had little to do mth the Near 
East. But from 1878 to 1914 the outstanding new factor 
in the Near Eastern question was Germany, infeodating 
Austria to herself, and then rapidly and thoroughly pene- 
trating the Balkan peninsula and Asiatic Turkey, and be- 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 99 

coming the mistress, politically and economically, of Con- 
stantinople, with control of land trade routes east and west. 
The development of Germany's Drang nach Osten we shall 
describe elsewhere.^ Wliat we need to bear in mind here is 
only that its success materially strengthened Austria-Hun- 
gary against Eussia and led Great Britain, France, and 
Italy to abandon the old opposition to Russia on the ground 
that, of two dangers and two evils, Eussia at Constanti- 
nople was the lesser. 

The two Balkan wars, in 1912 and 1913, are commonly 
supposed to have reopened the question of the succession of 
the Ottoman Empire, and to have substituted Germany for 
Great Britain as defender of the sultan's dominions. These 
wars, however, were the consequence of the decisions made 
at the Congress of Berlin. For, aside from Eussia (and 
possibly Germany), none of the powers realized the im- 
possibility of putting into execution the treaty of Berlin, 
which presupposed what did not and could not happen: 
(1) a regenerated Turkey, developing into a modern Euro- 
pean state, or, failing that, a neutralized Turkey, in which 
no powers would gain advantages over the others; (2) 
adequate protection for Christian minorities, assured by 
the joint diplomatic pressure of the Berlin signatories; 
and (3) complete control by the powers over the relations 
of the Balkan states with one another and with Turkey. 

On the eve of the war with Eussia a remarkably astute 
ruler ascended the throne of Turkey. Sultan Abdul Hamid 
II was past master in playing the game of world politics. 
He realized that the powers were suspicious of one another 
in regard to every proposal for the solution of any Near 
Eastern problem, because their rulers and statesmen were 
thinking of foreign policy in the terms of making invest- 
ments and selling goods. He knew how to take advantage 
of the constant pressure of bankers and merchants upon 
the foreign ministries of the powers. Therefore, whenever 

^See pp. 202-206. 



iOO AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

joint action was threatened lie played each power in turn 
against the others, and whenever it was necessary to avert 
wrath or bid for support he frightened or cajoled or bribed 
the powers singly. Sometimes he went too far, but even 
then his genius made capital out of errors. 

With a view to giving the Beaconsfield cabinet, which 
was supporting him against Russia, something to point to 
in answer to Gladstone's denunciations of Turkey, Abdul 
Hamid, a few months after his accession, gave his people a 
constitution which, if put into operation, would have 
brought Turkey into the family of European nations. When 
Beaconsfield had done all he could to soften for Turkey 
the terms of victorious Russia, and had been paid by the vir- 
tual cession of Cyprus, the sultan blandly suspended the 
constitution, and sent its author, Midhat Pasha, to exile 
and death. From this time on until the Revolution of 1908 
Abdul Hamid ruled as a despot. Foreigners in Turkey 
were protected from most of the injustices of arbitrary 
rule and enjoyed security of life and property because of 
the capitulary regime.^ Ottoman subjects, on the other 
hand, although the powers had reserved in the treaty of 
Berlin the right of joint intervention to defend them against 
pillage and massacre, were unable to help themselves 

^ ' ' Capitulations " is a term used to denote the special privileges granted by 
treaty to foreigners in Oriental countries. Capitulations originally provided 
only for the creation of legal machinery for non-Moslems of foreign origin 
resident in a country whose laws were theocratic. The jurisprudence of 
Mohammedan lands makes no provisions for non-Moslems. In the Ottoman 
Empire the early sultans solved this problem by recognizing their Christian 
and Jewish subjects as separate nations (millets), and by granting their 
hierarchies the authority to exercise administrative and judicial control in 
matters affecting their own peoples which Mohammedan jurisprudence did not 
cover. Europeans, having no religious courts in the empire (because they 
were of different branches of the Christian religion), were allowed to be 
under the jurisdiction of their consuls and live under the laAvs of their coun- 
tries of origin. In addition, to encourage intercourse with Europe, the sultans 
allowed foreign traders immunity from taxation. This extra-territoriality, first 
conceived of as a convenience and granted by the Turks of their own free 
will, developed in the nineteenth century into a means of putting Turkey under 
foreign control. The capitulatory regime, in the era of world politics, has been 
extended to other Asiatic countries. The Japanese did not tolerate it long ; but 
it has been used with great success to render China and Siam powerless to 
resist encroachments upon sovereignty. 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 101 

when the Turks oppressed them. Only Moslems were re- 
cruited for the army, and Christians were forbidden the 
possession of firearms. Only Moslems could hope for jus- 
tice in law-courts. Having neither physical nor legal 
means of making secure life and property, it was natural 
that, when the constitution was suspended, subject Chris- 
tian (and in some cases non-Turkish Moslem) elements of 
the Ottoman Empire should invoke outside aid in their 
distress. 

Concessions and trade kept the powers from intervening 
effectively to make living conditions tolerable for the sub- 
ject peoples of the empire. This was a violation by the 
signatories of the treaty of Berlin of the article inserted 
to meet Russia's argument, that revision of the treaty of 
San Stefano for the benefit of Turkey was handing back 
several milHon defenseless Christians to the mercies of 
the Moslem despot. But the responsibility of the Euro- 
pean statesmen was greater than simply failure to live up 
to obligations. Not only did they refuse to help the vic- 
tims of Abdul Hamid, but by diplomatic action and by force 
they attempted to thwart the efforts made by the Ottoman 
subject peoples to rid themselves of the sultan's tyranny, 
whether by insurrection or by securing the cooperation of 
their more fortunate kinsmen who already enjoyed inde- 
pendence or autonomy. 

After the treaty of Vienna the opposition of the powers 
to movements for independence in the Balkans could be 
regarded as consistent with a general European policy. 
Reactionary continental statesmen feared the effect of 
changes in political institutions or in the territorial status 
quo because nationalist and democratic movements any- 
where in Europe were bound to have a repercussion in their 
own countries. Between 1815 and 1878 Europe underwent 
profound changes. But the natural fruition of nationalist 
movements did not take place in the Balkans. Political 
considerations that had in large part to do with quesUons 



102 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

outside the Balkans led the powers to interfere in the 
struggles for freedom and the political evolution of Otto- 
man subject peoples. Greece was created mthout Epirus, 
Thessaly, and the larger Greek islands. Moldavia and 
Wallachia were forbidden to unite. Serbian and Monte- 
negrin frontiers were drawn arbitrarily to the exclusion 
of tens of thousands of kinsmen left under Ottoman rule, 
and the suzerainty of the sultan over all the states except 
Greece was insisted upon. By defying the powers, prog- 
ress in statehood was gradually made. But each inde- 
pendent action on the part of the Balkan peoples precipi- 
tated an international crisis. 

At the congresses of Paris and Berlin the representatives 
of the Balkan peoples were excluded from the deliberations, 
and the treaties were written without considering the 
wishes or interests of Greeks, Serbians, Rumanians, Mon- 
tenegrins, Bulgarians, and Albanians. What advantages 
they received in these treaties were for the most part 
merely the recognition by the powers of accomplished 
facts. During the generation that followed the Congress 
of Berlin the liberated portions of Balkan peoples were 
constantly at loggerheads with Turkey and with one an- 
other over the misrule in and the eventual inheritance of 
the wide band of territory from the Black Sea to the Adri- 
atic, which had been left without conditions to the sul- 
tan. Greece had an additional cause for unrest and quarrel 
in Ottoman treatment of the Cretans, who had begged at 
Berlin to be incorporated into Greece. No less after the 
treaty of Berlin than before were the Balkans a seething 
volcano, ready to break out into a war that would involve 
Europe. 

One of the principal reasons for the intervention of Great 
Britain to revise the treaty of San Stefano had been the 
fear that Russia would control the new state of Bulgaria, 
which was created by that treaty with generous frontiers, 
including most of Macedonia and extending to the -^gean 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 103 

Sea. While the treaty of Berlin at last recognized the inde- 
pendence of Montenegro and Serbia and the union of Mol- 
davia and Wallachia in the independent state of Rumania, 
Bulgaria was granted only autonomy and was given fron- 
tiers that, like those of Greece, excluded a large part of 
the Bulgarian population of European Turkey. And, in 
order to make Bulgaria still weaker, the territory granted 
autonomy was divided into two separate provinces, as had 
been done in Rumania's case by the treaty of Paris. But, 
just as the Rumanians disregarded the treaty of Paris and 
proclaimed Moldavia and Wallachia one state, the Bulgari- 
ans waited only seven years after the treaty of Berlin 
was signed to confront the powers with the fait accompli 
of the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria. 

During these seven years, however, the shoe had shifted 
to the other foot. What Great Britain had expected had 
not happened. The Bulgarians, displaying a remarkable 
aptitude for government and a spirit of independence from 
foreign control, refused to make their country a vassal 
of Russia. Accordingly, seeing in Bulgaria not an outpost 
of Russia but a barrier against Russian penetration of the 
Balkans, the British did not disapprove of this defiance of 
the treaty of Berlin. On the other hand, Russia, having 
found that she could not control Bulgaria, opposed the 
union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria. And thus the 
two powers quite reversed their attitude upon a question 
over which they had nearly fought only a few years before. 

Russia now urged the sultan to send an army into Bul- 
garia. Abdul Hamid hesitated. The Gladstone ministry 
had just fallen, but advices from London indicated that 
Gladstone, who was committed to the policy of withdrawal 
from Egypt, would be returned to power provided he was 
not handicapped with the problem of Turkey disturbing the 
peace. Abdul Hamid felt also that it was poor policy for 
Turkey to follow Russian advice and be identified with a 
Russian point of view, especially in the matter of a coun- 



104 • AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

try that he knew was lost to Turkey. Serbia, misinformed 
as to Turkey's intentions, declared war on Bulgaria. The 
Serb invasion, however, was quickly met and driven back 
by the Bulgarians, who in turn invaded Serbia. Finally 
Austrian intervention saved Serbia; and peace was re- 
stored by the sultan's agreement to recognize Prince Alex- 
ander of Bulgaria as governor-general of Eastern Rumelia. 

Russia made one more effort to control Bulgaria. A 
conspiracy was organized against Prince Alexander, who 
was overthro^vii and compelled to abdicate. Through the 
efforts of the prime minister, Stambuloff, however, Russian 
influence was successfully resisted, and an Austrian officer, 
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, grandson of 
Louis Philippe of France and closely allied to the British 
royal family, was chosen as ruler. For more than twenty 
years parties hostile and friendly to Russia alternately 
dominated Bulgarian political life. But, although the 
Russian party was in power at different times (once 
through the assassination of Stambuloff), Russia never suc- 
ceeded in using Bulgaria to further her schemes against 
Austria and Turkey. Hence Russia turned to Serbia and 
encouraged the Serbians to hope for territorial aggrandize- 
ment at the expense of the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. 
This policy made Serbia and Bulgaria deadly enemies; 
for they both laid claim to the major portion of Macedonia 
and worked against each other to obtain the succession of 
the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Under Prince Ferdinand, 
Bulgaria became a prosperous country and developed a 
strong arm}'. In 1908, taking advantage of the revolution 
in Turkey, Ferdinand proclaimed the independence of Bul- 
garia, and was crowned czar at Tirnovo. 

The treaty of Berlin gave to Austria the administration 
of the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 
the military occupation of the Sanjak of Novibazar. These 
territories were in the northwestern corner of the Balkan 
peninsula, south of Croatia and separated from the Adri- 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 105 

atic by the narrow strip of the Dalmatian coast. Like the 
Croatians and Dalmatians, the Bosnians and Herzego- 
vinians, although partly Mohammedan, spoke the Serbian 
language and were an essential part of the Greater Serbia 
that was the goal of the Serbian nationalists. Their attri- 
bution by the powers to Austria-Hungary was a severe 
blow, which time only aggravated. Russian agents fanned 
the flames of discontent and used the decision of Berlin 
to demonstrate to the Serbians the necessity of an inten- 
sive propaganda in Macedonia, which had now become for 
Serbia the path to the sea. 

In 1908 Austria-Hungary, believing that the Young 
Turk Revolution would jeopardize her hold on Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, notified the other signatories of the treaty of 
Berlin of the annexation to the Hapsburg empire of Bos- 
nia and Herzegovina. Between 1885 and 1903 Serbia was 
cursed with dynastic conspiracies and scandals, which cul- 
minated in the assassination of the king and queen and. the 
return to the throne of the rival dynasty in the person of 
King Peter Karageorgevich. It is profitless to go into this 
disgraceful history other than to mention that Austrian 
and Russian diplomacy utilized the peripetia of the court 
drama to influence Serbian foreign and economic policies. 
After the double assassination, only Russia and Austria- 
Hungary recognized the new king. A year later France, 
Germany, and Italy sent back their ministers to Belgrade. 
Great Britain, however, refused to resume diplomatic rela- 
tions with Serbia until 1906. 

The San Stefano treaty gave Greece nothing, and in- 
cluded within the proposed frontiers of Bulgaria large por- 
tions of Macedonia in which the Greeks claimed to have a 
substantial majority of the population. At Berlin the 
Greeks fared better than the other Balkan nations ; a recti- 
fication of frontier was promised them, which, had it been 
made in accordance with the definite assurances given by 
Lord Salisbury, would have righted the wrong done the 



106 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Greeks of the mainland half a century earlier in the set- 
tlement after the war of independence. Turks and Greeks 
appointed a joint commission, as the treaty provided ; but 
Abdul Hamid scored his first diplomatic victory in a long 
series of successful evasions of obligations. Although the 
commission had meetings on the ground and in Constr.nti- 
nople, the Turks refused to consider ethnographic and geo- 
graphic facts. The Greeks appealed to the powers, who 
referred the question for settlement to their ambassadors 
at Constantinople. Virtually the same line from the 
-^gean to the Adriatic that had been suggested two years 
earlier at Berlin was decided upon, Abdul Hamid, rely- 
ing for support upon Austria-Hungary and Italy, declared 
that Turkey could not acquiesce in the loss of Epirus 
and Thessaly. Secretly, however, the sultan intimated that 
he would yield most of the Greek claims in Thessaly if 
Epirus remained Turki^i. This suited the two great pow- 
ers bordering on the Adriatic whose strategic interests 
were in conflict mth the proposal to extend northward the 
coast-line of a state already in possession of the Ionian 
Islands and suspected of being infeodated to British for- 
eign'pohcy. 

Although the Greeks mobilized their army, the boundary 
dispute did not end in war. A compromise was effected by 
an international commission that gave Greece most of 
Thessaly and left to Turkey most of Epirus. Thus were 
planted the seeds of one of the most troublesome boundary 
questions of the Balkans, which for thirty years made bad 
blood between Turkey and Greece and since 1912 has em- 
bittered the relations between Greece and Albania. From 
the point of view of the ^\'ishes and interests of the peoples 
concerned, the Epirotes had the same right to be united with 
Greece as the Thessalians. Thej" were sacrificed to world 
politics, and have given the powers that sacrificed them 
trouble ever since. 

The increase of Greek territory by fourteen thousand 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 107 

square miles and of the independent Greek population by 
three hundred thousand was, however, a notable victory for 
Hellenism, and it added to the little kingdom sorely needed 
agricultural lands. On the other hand, the maritime 
Greeks, like the Epirotes, failed as completely as in former 
international conferences to realize their ambitions. The 
Greeks of the mainland were hopelessly intermingled with 
Moslem and rival Christian elements in the territories to 
which they laid claim. But in the islands they possessed 
an overwhelming majority. From Mitylene to Rhodes, 
the islands off the coast of Asia Minor (with the exception 
of Samos, which had enjoyed autonomy since 1835) were 
given no privileged status in the Ottoman Empire. When 
Cretans tried to plead their cause at Berlin, they were not 
listened to. The Cypriotes were transferred from Turkey 
to Great Britain without being consulted. They knew 
nothing of the diplomatic deal of which they were the ob- 
ject until English soldiers arrived to take possession of 
the island. 

Aside from Thessaly, Greece gained one advantage from 
the revision of the treaty of San Stefano from which later 
she was to benefit far beyond the dreams of the most ardent 
pan-Hellenists: Macedonia was prevented from becoming 
an organic part of Bulgaria. By the creation of a Slav 
state extending from the Ball^ans to the JEgean, Russian 
statesmen wanted to make sure of a permanent barrier to 
shut off the Greeks from Thrace and Constantinople. The 
history of the Balkan States since their emancipation shows 
that they know how to rid themselves of troublesome mi- 
norities. Had the treaty of San Stefano been executed, 
Hellenism would have largely disappeared froin Mace- 
donia, except, perhaps, in two or three coast cities. When 
the powers placed Macedonia back again under the Turks, 
all the Christian elements were condemned to another gen- 
eration of misrule. But the Greek element at least could 
still cherish the hope, which the treaty of San Stefano would 



108 AN INTRODUCTION TO AVORLD POLITICS 

have destroyed, of Macedonia's inclusion in a new Byzan- 
tine Empire. 

Because of conflicting aims in Macedonia, the emanci- 
pated Balkan peoples, who had previously used all their 
strength against the common Mohammedan oppressor, 
added as a dominant influence in foreign policy hatred of 
one another to hatred of the Turks. If the Turks were to lose 
what was left of their dominions in Europe, each Balkan 
state determined to have the lion's share. In justification 
of their claims to Macedonia, Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria 
adduced the same arguments — possession in the past, eco- 
nomic and strategic necessity, and a majority in the popula- 
tion, A balance-of -power theory was developed in Balkan 
diplomacy, and each little state became insanely jealous of 
an increase of the territory of any other. We have seen how 
Serbia, after the proclamation of the union of Eastern Eu- 
melia with Bulgaria, attacked Bulgaria. Greece also was 
eager to march against Bulgaria; but, as she had no com- 
mon frontier with Serbia or Bulgaria, the Greeks could not 
get at the Bulgarians mthout invading Turkish territory. 

Until the end of his reign Abdul Hamid exploited the 
consequences of the Serbo-Bulgarian War by encouraging 
the bitter rivalry of Serbians, Bulgarians, and Greeks in 
Macedonia. Over Epirus bad blood existed between Greeks 
and Albanians. In the northern and northeastern parts of 
Albania Turkish officials managed to keep Montenegrins, 
Serbians, and Albanians at one another's throats. By 
granting Rumania the right to establish a branch of her 
national church among the Kutzo-Wallachians (a small 
but scattered mountaineer element in Macedonia which 
spoke a Rumanian dialect), all the Balkan states were now 
brought into the cockpit. European Turkey touched the 
Adriatic, the ^gean, the Sea of Marmora, and the Black 
Sea; separated Greece from the other Balkan states; had 
a common frontier mth Austria and Hungary and coasts 
only twelve hours by sea from Italy and Russia; and 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 109 

the railroad to Constantinople was an essential link in 
Germany's communications with the Orient. With seven 
distinct elements of the population pitted against one an- 
other, within twenty years of the signing of the treaty of 
Berlin European Turkey had fallen into a state of anarchy. 

In these troubled waters Russia and Austria-Hungary 
fished. Macedonia was called ''the danger zone of Europe" 
and its sovereign ''the sick man of Europe." But when 
Greece went to war with Turkey over the Cretan question, 
the powers were not yet grouped into alliances that would 
make a European war inevitable. They were able to inter- 
vene jointly to save Greece after her defeat without getting 
into difficulties with one another. Common pressure was 
exercised on Bulgaria and Serbia. Despite the activity of 
its agents, who played the principal part in the Serbian 
propaganda in Macedonia, the Russian government advised 
the Serbian government to remain on friendly terms with 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Russian ef- 
forts seemed to be directed particularly to advancing the 
Serbian propaganda in Macedonia at the expense of the 
Greeks. 

Between 1898 and 1902 the situation in Macedonia be- 
came intolerable. Russia was not in a position to make 
a bid for exclusive control of Macedonia, either by negotia- 
tions with Turkey or through Serbia and Bulgaria. She 
felt that Great Britain was watching for an opportunity 
to attack her, and her expansion in the Far East demanded 
all her attention and energies. She therefore joined with 
Austria in an ultimatum to Turkey. A memorandum of 
reforms that the two powers had had under consideration 
ever since 1897 was presented to the sultan in February, 
1903. But Abdul Hamid replied that he had already 
begun to apply a similar program; and then engineered a 
series of insurrections to demonstrate the necessity of 
keeping large armed forces in Macedonia. Public opinion 
in Europe was fooled, and Abdul Hamid put down the in- 



110 AN INTKODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

surrections with great cruelty. Russia and Austria-Hun- 
gary, however, persisted, and on October 9, 1903, they told 
the sultan that he must agree to what is kno^vn as the Miirz- 
steg program of reforms, which were to be put into effect 
under the supervision of agents of the two powers and 
enforced by a reorganized gendarmerie commanded by an 
Italian oflQcer. The reforms proved a farce. But the 
powers did not come to a parting of the ways in regard to 
Macedonia until after the defeat of Russia in the Far East. 
Then Russia, having settled her differences with Great 
Britain, turned her activities once more to the Balkan pen- 
insula and threatened to disturb the plans Germany had 
been making to bring the Ottoman Empire, in its entirety, 
into her economic sphere of influence. 

Of the six powers, Germany was the one that figured least 
in international rivalry over the succession of Turkey, in 
concerted diplomatic and naval actions to coerce Turkey, 
and in frontier and treaty disputes mth Turkey. Russia 
and Austria-Hungary were leaders in the Balkan interven- 
tion; Russia, Great Britain, France, and Italy were in- 
volved in the long-drawn-out Cretan question; Russia, 
Great Britain, and France were the ''protecting powers" 
of Greece ; Great Britain and France intervened in Egypt ; 
Russia made diplomatic representations in favor of Serbia, 
of Bulgaria (at times), and of the Armenians; France was 
defender of the interests of the Cathohcs of the empire, 
and public opinion in England forced Great Britain to take 
a stand more than once in behalf of the Armenians ; Great 
Britain detached from the Ottoman Empire CjT)rus and 
Egypt, and Russia a part of Armenia; Great Britain, 
France, and Italy had frequent disputes with Constanti- 
nople over frontier questions in Arabia, the Red Sea, and 
the Sudan. When Abdul Hamid was compelled to accept 
foreign control over a portion of the revenues of the state, 
by the creation of the Ottoman public debt, Great Britain 
and France were the principal powers interested. We have 



THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION (1879-1908) 111 

traced the development of German influence in Turkey 
elsewhere.* But, in view of the later triumph of German 
diplomacy at Constantinople, it is interesting to point out 
that Germany, in her dealings with Abdul Hamid, profited 
by the fact that her general foreign policy did not cause 
constant friction with Turkey — a handicap that the other 
powers suffered. 

In dealing with the powers Abdul Hamid took full ad- 
vantage of the various conflicting interests in their world 
politics, which prevented them from combining to dictate 
how he should run his empire. The powers drew up 
definite programs of reforms, upon the adoption of which 
they insisted in joint notes; together and singly, they 
warned Abdul Hamid to keep order in Macedonia, to stop 
bullying the Cretans, and to refrain from massacring the 
the Armenians. But only when an international financial 
interest was at stake were their ultimatums and naval 
demonstrations effective. Abdul Hamid could not afford 
to offend the bankers. To withstand political and humani- 
tarian demands, however, he was in a splendid position. 
It was not until the closing years of his reign that Great 
Britain compounded her colonial rivalries with France and 
Russia. But even after the Anglo-French agreement of 
1904 and the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907,^ and after 
the disappearance of Abdul Hamid from the scene, British 
statesmen hesitated to use force against Turkey, whose 
sultan was the khalif (successor of the Prophet), to whom 
seventy million Mohammedans of India owed spiritual al- 
legiance. 

We can not enter into the Cretan question, which involved 
four of the powers with Turkey and Greece during most 
of the period under survey ; nor into the Armenian question. 
The failure of European diplomacy to reconcile Ottoman 
and Greek interests in Crete with the aspirations of the 

*See pp. 202-206. 

'For the former agreement see pp. 191-194, and for the latter pp. 180-182. 



112 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Cretans, and to prevent tlie wholesale massacre of Ar- 
menians in Asia Minor and Constantinople, demonstrated 
the inability of the powers to act in concert for the solution 
of the Near Eastern question, and the impotence of hu- 
manitarian considerations, however great, to influence the 
course of world pohtics. Because Armenia's natural 
wealth and geographical position are not important enough 
to be vital factors in international diplomacy, statesmen 
have given attention to the Armenians only during the 
brief periods when public opinion has been aroused by the 
stories of atrocities. AVhen indignation died do\vn the Ar- 
menians were ignored. The Cretan trouble did not bring 
the powers into conflict. Its bearing on world pohtics is 
limited to the influence it had upon Greece's role in ex- 
pelHng Turkey from her European provinces. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ETJSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION (1829-1878) 

FROM the beginning of the formation of the Russian 
Empire the Muscovite government made no distinc- 
tion between Europe and Asia. There was simultaneous 
expansion in all directions towards the open sea. Conse- 
quently, the additions to the empire were always in con- 
tiguous territory. Up to the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Russian expansion was not, strictly speaking, colonial, 
but was rather the natural, automatic development of a 
unitary, political empire. The Russians did not assimilate 
other peoples when they incorporated them. They were 
not feeling the urge of emigrating to escape overpopula- 
tion, or of developing new lands and exploiting alien 
peoples to secure raw materials or to provide markets for 
their surplus production. In order to understand the radi- 
cal difference between Russia as a world power and the 
other world powers, we must bear these facts in mind. 

The treaty of Paris, in 1856, sought to impose upon Rus- 
sia conditions that, if persisted in, would have prevented 
her normal economic evolution. Russian foreign policy had 
to adapt itself to the rules of the new game of world politics. 
But the Muscovite government enjoyed advantages that 
enabled it to play a more independent role than the other 
powers in international relations. The empire was self- 
supporting, virtually immune from invasion, and not vitally 
affected by sea power ; and its rulers did not have to take 
into consideration the pressure of public opinion. 

In the Near East and the Far East alike, the position 
of Russia was different from that of other European 
powers. The Balkans, Turkey, China, and Japan were 

113 



114 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

neighbors. Long before there was a Near Eastern ques- 
tion, or a Far Eastern question, to disturb the relations 
among the European powers and change their attitude 
toward one another, the Eussians had been building up 
their empire at the expense of the Turks and Persians, 
and had been in conflict with the Chinese and Japanese 
over commercial and strategic problems. These did not 
affect the Occidental powers until the new conditions in in- 
dustry and transportation led them to seek far-off markets. 

Siberia was an integral part of the Muscovite empire 
for more than a century before the Russians reached the 
Black Sea or were firmly established on the Baltic. The 
Cossacks founded Tobolsk in 1587, and Muscovite author- 
ity was extended beyond Lake Baikal in 16-10. The Rus- 
sians entered the basin of the Amur River in 1650, and 
signed mth China the treaty of Nertchinsk, fixing the 
Russo-Chinese boundary, in 1689. In 1492, only twelve 
years after control in Russia passed from the Tartars to 
the Russians, Georgia first appealed to Moscow for assist- 
ance against the Persians and Turks. 

Five years before the French Revolution the Crimea was 
ceded by Turkey to Russia, and during the Napoleonic era 
Russia incorporated Finland, the Aland Islands, Courland, 
and Bessarabia. Georgia was annexed in 1801, and by the 
treaty of Gulistan, in 1813, Persia ceded to Russia Cau- 
casian territories that had been contended for among Per- 
sians, Turks, and Russians for several generations. 

In the northern Pacific the Russians gained their first 
foothold in 1636 and arrived at the mouth of the Amur in 
1644. Behring Strait was discovered by the Cossack 
Dejneff in 1648, and Russian claims were established over 
Kamchatka and Alaska before the end of the seventeenth 
century. The Russians first came ip.to contact with the 
Japanese in the Kurile Islands ; on many of them they set 
up pillars of occupation, which the Japanese promptly 



RUSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION (1829-1878) 115 

destroyed. In 1807 Sakhalin Island was occupied by the 
Eussian navy. Three years later the Eussian vice-admiral 
in charge of the expedition to explore and claim the Kurile 
Islands was made prisoner by the Japanese, who released 
him in 1813 only after he formally renounced, in the name 
of his government, the Eussian claim to Sakhalin and the 
Kurile group. 

A knowledge of these facts is essential to the study of 
Eussian expansion in the nineteenth century. We need to 
bear in mind that wars with Turkey and Persia were a 
natural part of the process of creating the Eussian Empire ; 
that the push toward the sea began when Eussia began; 
that Siberia was not an acquisition by a state already 
formed, but an original and component part of it ; and that 
Eussia was the first European power to come into contact 
and conflict with China and Japan. After steam power 
changed international relations other European states 
united to prevent a further extension of Eussia at the ex- 
pense of the Ottoman Empire, and to enter into trade rela- 
tions with China and Japan. This brought Eussia into op- 
position with other European powers over questions that 
had not up to this time been raised in European affairs, 
questions that did not have to do with the direct relations 
between Eussia and the Occidental states, questions that 
Eussia felt were of right matters to be decided between 
her and her Oriental neighbors. 

In the Near East Eussia awakened the suspicions and 
the fears of Great Britain, France, and Austria by her 
sponsorship of the cause of the Christians in the Balkans ; 
of Great Britain and France by her desire to control the 
Baltic and Black seas ; of France by setting up a claim to 
protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, which 
conflicted in Syria and Palestine with the political and com- 
mercial advantages enjoyed by France through being pro- 
tector of the Catholic Christians ; of Austria by the inten- 



116 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tion attributed to Russia of reacliing the Adriatic; of 
Great Britain by the menace to India arising from penetra- 
tion of central Asia. 

The last advance Russia was able to make in the Near 
East without interference from the other powers was in 
the wars with Persia and Turkej^ during the first decade 
of the use of steam power in transportation. Complaints 
against the Russian methods of administering the countries 
ceded by the treaty of Gulistan led Persia to renew the war 
for the Caucasus in 1826. After two years of fighting, 
Persia signed the peace of Turkmantchai, abandoning to 
Russia the provinces of Erivan and Nakhitchevan and 
agreeing to pay an indemnity. In the same year Russia 
turned her arms against Turkey, crossed the Balkans, and 
dictated peace in Adrianople in the spring of 1829. The 
treaty of Adrianople was a fitting complement to that of 
Turkmantchai, and it aroused as much anxiety in Austria 
as the treaty with Persia had aroused in Great Britain. 
Three years earlier, by the convention of Akerman, the 
Sublime Porte had granted the Serbians autonomy and 
had recognized what amounted to a Russian protectorate 
over Serbia, and also over Wallachia and Moldavia. These 
arrangements were now specifically confirmed. Further, 
Turkey assented to the extension of Russian sovereignty 
over the tribes in the Caucasus whose allegiance Persia 
had renounced, and agreed to waive all her o^vn claims. 

It remained for Russia to make the inhabitants of the 
Caucasus and Transcaucasia accept her sovereignty. For 
thirty years she was never mthout a war on her hands 
somewhere between the Caspian and the Black seas. Not 
until after the Crimean War did she push the pacification 
of these territories with such vigor that the resistance of 
the Mohammedan tribes was broken. Between 1859 and 
1864 her administrative control was definitely established 
in a region that rapidly became one of the richest of the 
empire. Along the Caspian coast around Baku the develop- 



EUSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION (1829-1878) 117 

ment of the oil-fields made this conquest one of world-wide 
importance, to which the Occidental powers were never 
reconciled. Most of the Circassians emigrated to Turkey. 
At Paris, in 1856, Russia was compelled to give up her 
expansion southward along the Black Sea and her demand 
for Kars. But at Berlin, in 1878, the other powers, content 
with blocking her in the Balkans, agreed to the annexation 
of Kars, Bayazid, Ardahan, and Batum. This gave Rus- 
sia a strategic frontier against Turkey, and a port and 
railway terminus on the Black Sea, which the development 
of the Baku oil-fields made necessary. 

The treaty of Paris neutralized the Black Sea and took 
away from Russia the mouth of the Danube by depriving 
her of a portion of Bessarabia, together with her rights 
of intervention in Serbia, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Four- 
teen years later, when Russia realized that the balance of 
power in Europe was changed by the German defeat of 
France, she denounced, on October 31, 1870, the Paris 
stipulations as to the neutrality of the Black Sea.^ The 
treaty of Berlin in 1878 recognized this act, and also gave 
back the Bessarabian territory lost after the Crimean 
War. From 1878 until 1918, when the Entente gained 
control of the Bosphorus, Russia maintained a fleet in the 
Black Sea and strong fortifications on the littoral. In 
1886 the free port stipulation of the treaty of Berlin was 
repudiated. 

After the Crimean War the Russians began to expand 
into central Asia from the north by way of the steppes 
and from the west by way of the Caspian Sea. The Trans- 
caspian Province was built up largely of territory taken 
from Khiva, and it brought the Russians to the frontier of 
Persia. Farther east, Syr Daria was detached from 

^ Great Britain and France were determined also to render Eussia powerless 
in the Baltic Sea. To this end, the treaty of Paris provided for the neutrali- 
zation of the Aland Islands, at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. In the 
autumn of 1914 Eussia violated this provision of the treaty of Paris also, and 
did not answer the protests of Sweden, for whose benefit the original stipula- 
tion was supposed to have been made. 



118 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Bokhara after the Holy "War of 1866. Tashkend was cap- 
tured in 1865, and Alexander II created the government of 
Turkestan in 1867. This brought the Eussians to the fron- 
tier of Afghanistan, and was the beginning of a new source 
of friction between Russians and British, in which Persians 
and Afghans became the victims. The khan of Khiva ac- 
knowledged the supremacy of the czar in 1870, and Bokhara 
became a vassal state of Russia in 1873. 

The intervention of Great Britain and France to save 
Turkey in 1854 and the attitude of Italians, Germans, and 
Austrians, were taken to heart by the czar and his minis- 
ters, who realized that all of the powers stood between them 
and the Mediterranean. The decision to colonize eastern 
Siberia, where up to this time only convicts had been sent, 
followed immediately. In 1855 began the new movement 
of Russian colonization to the Pacific coast, which had been 
renounced in the Chinese treaty of 1689. By the treaty of 
Nertchinsk, Russia had promised China to abandon her ad- 
vance along the Amur. Taking advantage of the embar- 
rassment of China, who was struggling mth the demands 
of the British and French, Russia now, however, disre- 
garded the old treaty and sent peasants all along the river 
under the protection of Cossacks. Great progress was 
made between 1855 and 1858, when Russia joined Great 
Britain and France in forcing China to sign treaties whose 
advantages were unilateral. 

But we must go back to the decade preceding the Cri- 
mean War for the first steps in the renewal of Russian 
activity in the Far East. The treaty of Nanking in 1842, 
following the Opium AVar, gave Hong-Kong to Great 
Britain and opened up for foreign trade four treaty ports 
besides Canton. The United States, France, Belgium, Swe- 
den, and Norway secured treaty rights between 1844 and 
1847; while an imperial rescript of December 28, 1844, 
permitted the propagation of Christianity, which had been 
suppressed in 1724. These encroachments alarmed and 



EUSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION (1829-1878) 119 

stimulated the Russian government. There was fear that 
the missionaries and traders of western Europe would 
quickly appropriate everything in sight, and this appre- 
hension was confirmed by the cruises of British and French 
squadrons in north Pacific waters for several years before 
the Crimean War. The intervention of the United States 
and the western European powers in Japan also demanded 
attention. In the interior of Asia, Russia was the neigh- 
bor of China, with boundaries settled by treaties in 1689, 
1727, 1768, and 1792. These regulated the traffic across the 
frontier and gave certain rights to the Orthodox Church. 
In the north Pacific up to this time only the Japanese had 
staked out claims rivaling those of the Russians. 

Russia's answer to the treaty of Nanking was the Kuldja 
convention, concluded in 1851 for the regulation of trade on 
the Mongolian frontier — a settlement which gave Russia 
a pretext for annexing most of Kuldja thirty years later. 
In 1851 also, Nikolaevsk, at the mouth of the Amur, was 
founded and fortified, and two other posts on the sea-coast 
were established in 1853. In the same year the Russians 
put garrisons in the southern part of Sakhalin Island, near 
one of which coal was discovered. 

With this start, they were ready to take diplomatic steps 
when the psychological moment should arrive. This mo- 
ment came with the Second Anglo- Chinese War. China had 
protested against the violations of the ancient treaty con- 
cerning the Amur. But her hands were tied with the Tai- 
ping Rebellion, and when Great Britain and France again 
started hostilities in 1857 Russian diplomats were able to 
sympathize with China. Had Russia not also been the vic- 
tim of Anglo-French aggression, and had she not been 
forced to conclude a humiliating treaty the previous year? 
The treaty of Aigun, May 29, 1858, recognized the north 
bank of the Amur to the sea as Russian, and gave Russia 
the reversion of rights — ahead of any other foreign power 
— over the territory between the Usuri and the sea. Two 



120 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

weeks later the Eussians were the first signatories of the 
Tientsin treaties, which the British, French, and Americans 
had drafted to impose upon China in the opening up of 
trade. "When the French and British renewed the war and 
marched on Peking, the Russian envoy, who had stayed 
with the Chinese, became the mediator for China. The 
British and French were dumfounded when they discov- 
ered that on November 14, 1860, three weeks after they 
had secured new treaties, with additional advantages, from 
China at the point of the sword, and after a costly expedi- 
tion, a Russo-Chinese treaty gave Russia, who had not 
fought at all, the rich territory of Primorskaya, between 
the Usuri River and the Pacific. This valuable acquisition, 
which became the maritime province of Siberia, contained 
a great harbor that had been discovered and named by the 
French in 1852 and renamed and partly mapped out by an 
English squadron in 1855. The Russians rebaptized Vic- 
toria Bay. It became Peter the Great Bay, and in 1861 
Vladivostok was founded. 

The Russian government was not unmindful of the neces- 
sity of treating with Japan, which was just entering into 
world affairs. A Russo-Japanese treaty was signed in 1856, 
dividing the Kurile Islands between Russia and Japan and 
declaring Sakhalin neutral. But after the establishment of 
Vladivostok the Russians became worried by the anomalous 
status of the latter. They were afraid that the island 
would be occupied by another European power, or that 
Japan, at the instigation and under the influence of some 
other power, would disregard the treaty provisions of 1856 
and fortify the island. Accordingly in 1862 Russia sug- 
gested to Japan the joint occupation of the island, but de- 
manded the lion's share. Japan's counter-offer to divide 
was not accepted, and in 1865 Russia proposed to give her 
share of the Kurile Islands in exchange for the whole of 
Sakhalin. In 1867 a curious convention was signed ac- 
knowledging the common right of occupation, wherever it 



RUSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION (1829-1878) 121 

was made effective by colonization, but with no delimitation 
of zones. The Eussians, not having sufficient colonists, 
merely staked out claims. The Japanese followed suit. 
This unsatisfactory arrangement was abandoned in 1875, 
when Japan agreed to the proposal of 1865, ceded Sakhalin 
to Russia, and took in exchange the remainder of the Kurile 
Islands. In the meantime Russia sold her rights on the 
American coast to the United States in 1867. 

Sakhalin was essential for the freedom and protection 
of the new port of Vladivostok. But Russia recognized 
from her experience in the Crimean War the futility of 
remote island and overseas possessions for a nation that 
could not hold its own against naval powers. Even under 
the new conditions of world politics, the colonial expansion 
of Russia was to follow the old policy of the growth of 
the Russian Empire — no jumps, but simply the addition 
of contiguous territories. The political foundations were 
laid before 1878. It required only railways to knit together 
the empire, and to bring into touch, with and under the ef- 
fective administrative control of Petrograd and Moscow, 
an easily defended empire of boundless wealth. 



CHAPTER IX 

CONSOLIDATION OF EUSSIAN POWER IN THE FAR EAST 
(1879-1903) 

THE dominions of the Romanoffs in Europe and Asia 
grew by expansion in every direction from Moscow. 
In seeking outlets to the sea, the Russians made no jumps ; 
hence the land over which their flag waved in 1914 was all 
contiguous territory. They added neighboring countries 
and subjected neighboring races until they were masters 
of the largest continuous empire the world has ever known. 
Their political aggrandizement outward from Moscow was 
a consistent forward march toward the Black Sea, the 
Baltic Sea, the White Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Persian 
Gulf, the Adriatic Sea, the ^gean Sea, and the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. Before the World War the first three of the 
eight possible outlets had been reached and made secure. 
To reach the others Russian foreign policy ran afoul of 
Italy and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, of all the great 
powers in the Ottoman Empire, of Great Britain in Per- 
sia and Afghanistan, of China and Japan in the Far East. 
Its final success depended upon the collapse of Turkey, 
the limiting of Great Britain's influence in the countries 
surrounding India, and the partition of China. 

Up to the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the 
efforts of Russia were directed principally against the in- 
tegrity of the Ottoman Empire. She tried to become the 
dominant power in the Balkans, to control the Bosphorus 
and the Dardanelles, and to encroach upon Asiatic Tur- 
key by extending her empire south of the Caucasus. Dis- 
tance made political and economic expansion in Asia as yet 
more or less impracticable. Russia became a rival with 

122 



RUSSIAN POWER IN FAR EAST (1879-1903) 123 

whom Great Britain had to reckon, a despoiler of China, 
and an enemy of Japan, only when soldiers and colonists 
followed the extension of her railroad system. When the 
Russian rail-heads arrived at the frontiers of Persia and 
of Afghanistan, Great Britain prepared to fight. When 
the Trans-Siberian Railroad reached the Pacific, war be- 
tween Russia and Japan was inevitable. 

In studying the expansion of Russia across Asia, how- 
ever, we need to have before us a meteorological map of the 
continent. The Trans-Siberian Railway had to be kept as 
far south as possible, for two reasons: to avoid cold and 
snow, enemies of steam transportation; and to traverse 
territories whose development by colonists would make 
the construction of the railroad financially practicable. 
It was considerations of climate, also, that, once the project 
of linking the Pacific with Moscow was adopted, led to the 
policy of political expansion southward. The vast stretches 
of Siberia, already owned by Russia, were of no value for 
the railroad's maintenance ; to make the project pay, branch 
lines had to be run towards Persia, India, and China. We 
must not fall into the error of regarding Russian foreign 
policy in Asia, after the conception of the Trans-Siberian 
Railway, as simply a policy of intrigue against Great 
Britain in India and of wanton land-grabbing in China. 
The commerce of Persia and Afghanistan, of Tibet and 
Mongolia, were factors of importance ; northern Manchuria 
was the logical route to Vladivostok ; a branch south from 
Mukden to Dalny would give an ice-free terminal port and 
add to the railroad's revenue ; an extension to Peking would 
follow of itself. 

After the Congress of Berlin the Russians were unable 
to realize their aspirations in the Balkan peninsula. Con- 
stantinople had eluded their grasp. No European power, 
not even France, was willing to support Russia in an ag- 
gressive Near Eastern policy. After the disappointment 
of failing to dominate, politically and economically, infant 



124 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Bulgaria, Russian statesmen limited their efforts to check- 
mating any extension of Austrian influence in the Balkans. 
They were glad to sign an agreement with Austria-Hungary 
for the preservation of the status quo in the Balkan pen- 
insula, and six years later to join that power in presenting 
the Miirzsteg program to the signatories of the treaty of 
Berlin as a means of solving the Macedonian problem. 
This enabled them to concentrate all their efforts upon ex- 
pansion in Asia. 

"When the secret treaty of Skiernevice was signed in 1884, 
Czar Alexander III refused to agree to the suggestion of 
Bismarck that the stipulation of benevolent neutrality 
should hold good in the event of two of the powers in 
the Dreikaiserbund (league of three emperors) being at 
war with a power outside the group. Although he was 
willing to enter into the treaty with a view to protecting 
Eussia against an attack by the Triple Alliance, he 
thought that it was not to the interest of Russia to see 
France crushed again. When the treaty expired in 
1887, he refused to renew it. France was thus saved from 
a continuance of complete isolation by Russia's anxiety 
over a further shifting of the balance of power in Europe 
through the permanent weakness of France. He did 
not mean to encourage France in an aggressive policy 
towards Germany. But as Russia needed French financial 
support for her railway projects, especially in Asia, he 
agreed to reassure France to the extent of entering into 
a military convention, which was ratified shortly before 
his death. When Nicholas II succeeded to the throne in 
November, 1894, the understanding became an alliance. 
Nicholas had no quarrel with Germany and did not intend 
to be dra^vn into one. Nor did he look for political aid from 
France in Russia's Far Eastern policy. But he did have to 
secure French capital for the Trans-Siberian Railway and 
its ramifications, and he realized that, once enormous sums 



RUSSIAN POWER IN FAR EAST (1879-1903) 125 

of Frencli money were tied up in Russian schemes, France 
would not join other powers in opposing Russia, even 
though she could not be counted upon to support her. 

Between 1895 and 1905 the railway mileage in the Rus- 
sian Empire was almost doubled. Considerably more than 
half of the new mileage was in Asiatic Russia. Its con- 
struction completely changed the political and economic 
history of the empire. The first section of the Trans-Si- 
berian Railway, from Chelyabinsk to Omsk, was opened in 
December, 1895. During the next seven years all the con- 
necting links (except around Lake Baikal) were completed 
and a number of branch lines built. Vladivostok was joined 
to Moscow by a railway line five thousand miles long, a 
thousand miles of which were in Chinese territory. It was 
originally intended to build the Trans-Siberian Railway 
entirely on Siberian territory, and by 1898 the rails had 
been pushed five hundred miles north from Vladivostok to 
join the line coming from the west. But the cost, in view of 
engineering difficulties and the impossibility of ever count- 
ing upon more than a scant population, was prohibitive. 
This led to the Manchurian short cut and the war with 
Japan. 

When we consider how essential to the success of the 
Russian railway projects was the right of way across 
northern Manchuria, the determination of Russia not to 
allow Japan to remain on the continent after her victory 
over China is understood. Students of European imperi- 
alism understand also the chain of events that put Russia 
in the place from which, by insisting upon the modification 
of the treaty of Shimonoseki, she had ousted Japan. Vladi- 
vostok and the thousand miles of railway in China had to 
be protected. 

It v/ould not do to allow a Japanese naval base at 
Port Arthur, as that would facihtate landing a Japan- 
ese army; ergo, a naval base must be established where 



126 AN INTRODUCTION TO AVORLD POLITICS 

the potential enemy wanted one. The naval base must 
be connected with the railway by a branch line for use 
in case of siege. It would not pay to build the line for stra- 
tegic purposes alone; ergo, a commercial port and mining 
concessions must also be thought of. Additional justifi- 
cation was found in the fact that Vladivostok was ice- 
bound (or at least ice-impeded) in mnter. A simple right 
of way across northern Manchuria, therefore, easily de- 
veloped into successive demands at Peking for Russian 
control of all Manchuria, including the Liao-tung penin- 
sula. Once committed to this policy, Russia felt that she 
could not stop with Manchuria. A naval base in Korea be- 
came necessary. 

From the Russian point of view, every move seemed a 
reasonable corollary to necessary railroad-building. From 
the Japanese point of view, however, Russian activity was 
rapidly creating a situation in which Japan would either 
have to accept the exclusive control of Russia in Man- 
churia (and eventually in Korea), protected by Russian 
naval supremacy in Japan's own waters, or else fight 
Russia. 

For five years after she, with the help of France and 
Germany, robbed Japan of the fruits of the Sino-Japanese 
War, Russia made her advances cautiously. But when the 
Boxer Rebellion threw China into anarchy, her full plans 
began to come to light. France, Germany, and Great 
Britain had now become accomplices in the spohation of 
China, and were in no position to oppose Russia openly, 
either at Peking or by direct diplomatic representations at 
Petrograd. The United States would go no farther than 
words. The Chinese government was corrupt and passive. 
Alone Japan faced the test that would determine whether 
she was to become a great power or a vassal state like the 
other countries of Asia. 

Russian statesmen acted imprudently. Had they been 
content to restrict Russian activities to Manchuria, they 



RUSSIAN POWER IN FAR EAST (1879-1903) 127 

could have postponed, if not averted, the conflict with Ja- 
pan. In securing the long lease of Port Arthur and the con- 
cession to extend a branch of her railroad into the Liao- 
tung peninsula, Russia was not menacing Japan more than 
were the other three powers who were partners in encroach- 
ing upon Chinese sovereignty. Great Britain, for one, had 
signed a sphere-of-influence agreement with Russia. Ger- 
many was acting in the Shantung peninsula as Russia was 
acting in the Liao-tung peninsula. France was now the 
open ally of Russia. All four powers had leased ports 
which, in their hands, were a menace to Japan. Japan 
could not fight all the powers, and her diplomatic position 
would have been precarious had she declared war on Rus- 
sia for what was happening in China. It was common 
sense for the Russians to wait before provoking Japan 
until they had completed their Asiatic railroad system 
and had tested it for military purposes. But, instead 
of making haste slowly, they tried to do everything at 
once. 

In March, 1900, occurred the first of the events that com- 
pelled Japan to issue her second challenge to Europe.^ It 
was announced that Russia had secured a concession for 
exclusive settlement at Masan-pho, the finest harbor of 
Korea, and the promise of the Korean government not to 
cede the island of Koji, off Masan-pho, to any foreign 
country ; and the Petrograd government forthwith declared 
its intention to make Masan-pho a winter harbor for war- 
ships. Had Masan-pho become a naval base, Russia would 
have dominated the passage from the Japan Sea to the 
Yellow Sea. Japan sent an ultimatum to Korea, demand- 
ing that the concession be canceled, and after a year of 
bickering the matter was temporarily settled by a grant 
of concessions at Masan-pho to both Russia and Japan. 
At the same time, a joint Korean-Japanese company se- 
cured a concession for a railroad from Seoul to the port of 

»See Chapter XII. 



128 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Fusan, which is near Masan-pho, and which the Japanese 
knew they could develop in such a way as to control 
Masan-pho. 

The second attempt of Russia to enter Korea occurred 
in 1903. Inspired by the example of France in Siam, where 
a lumber concession in the Mekong Valley was being suc- 
cessfully followed up by administrative control of both 
banks of the river, Russia established a settlement at 
Phyong-an Do, on the Korean side of the Yalu River. The 
Korean government protested. The Russian minister re- 
plied that a settlement at Phyong-an Do was necessary for 
developing a timber concession granted in 1896. The 
Koreans rejected this interpretation. There was nothing 
in the terms of the concession about a settlement. The Rus- 
sian minister then tried to force Korea to sign supple- 
mentary clauses to the original concession, legalizing the 
occupation of land at Phyong-an Do. Seconded by Great 
Britain and the United States, Japan backed up the Korean 
protest. 

Here the fatal weakness of the Korean government be- 
came evident. It was the same kind of weakness that was 
leading to the partition of China. Afraid of provoking 
resentment, and unwilling to take either side, Korea sought 
a solution in inaction. She neither insisted upon the Rus- 
sians leaving nor signed the supplementary clauses. To 
get even with Japan, Russia instigated the Korean govern- 
ment to protest against the issue of notes by the Japanese 
bank at Seoul, the first and only banking enterprise in 
Korea. The Japanese bank-notes were declared illegal. 
No steps were taken, however, to prevent their circulation. 
None could accuse the Koreans of partialitj^ Unable to 
defend their o^\ai interests, and unwilling to take sides, they 
simply put up their country as a prize to be fought for and 
won by the strongest. 

Pushed to its logical conclusion, Russian foreign policy 



RUSSIAN POWER IN FAR EAST (1879-1903) 129 

in the Far East led from Vladivostok to Korea and Liao- 
tung. In 1894 Japan fought China to keep Russia out of 
Korea, and as a result of her victory took Liao-tung, al- 
though she was not allowed to keep it. In 1904 Japan 
fought Russia to keep Russia out of Korea, and again took 
Liao-tung. Both wars were caused by the inability of 
Korea to maintain her independence and of China to main- 
tain her sovereignty. 



CHAPTER X 

JAPAN'S FIEST CHALLENGE TO EUROPE: THE WAE 
WITH CHINA (1894-1895) 

ACCIDENTALLY discovered by the Portuguese about 
the middle of the sixteenth century, Japan became a 
j5eld for missionary propaganda, and during almost a hun- 
dred years, from 1542 to 1637, had trade and cultural rela- 
tions with Europe. For more than fifty years Portuguese 
Jesuits and traders enjoyed a monopoly. But at the end 
of the sixteenth century the Spanish Franciscans, operat- 
ing from the Philippines, began to enter the field. The 
eyes of the Japanese were opened as to the significance 
of the propaganda by the frank statement of the captain 
of a wrecked Spanish galleon, who thought to intimidate 
the natives when he declared : 

* * Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish 
to conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace 
our religion, and when they have made suitable progress, 
troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and 
then our kings have not much trouble in accomplishing 
the rest." 

When the Spaniards attempted to get a foothold, an 
edict expelling missionaries, promulgated in 1587 but only 
mildly enforced, was invoked to save the country from the 
peril of foreign domination. But Jesuits and Franciscans 
returned in disguise, and massacres of Christians followed. 
It took forty years to extirpate Christianitj^ To accom- 
plish this, all intercourse mth Europe had to be stopped. 
From 1639 to 1853 trade relations with the outside world 
were entirely severed. 

"When, through the inevitable development of world trade 

130 



JAPAN'S "WAR WITH CHINA (1894-1895) 131 

as a result of the revolution in transportation and industry, 
the Asiatic coast of the Pacific began to be more frequented 
by the ships and traders of the Occident, it was impossible 
for Japan to preserve her isolation. Russia was pressing 
on China from the north and Great Britain and France 
from the south. In the course of time one of the three 
powers would certainly have seized a foothold on Japanese 
islands in its struggle against the others for commercial 
mastery of the Far East. The United States, however, 
anticipated this extension of European eminent domain. 

The development of the whaling industry in Alaskan 
waters resulted in frequent shipwreck of Americans on 
Japanese islands, and the first visits of American ships to 
Japanese ports were to secure the release of American 
sailors and to return Japanese seamen shipwrecked on our 
own Pacific coast. In 1846 two American war-ships an- 
chored oif Uraga, and Commodore Biddle made an official 
overture for trade relations. The refusal was categorical, 
and the commodore did not insist. 

The acquisition and rapid development of California, 
following close upon the failure of Commodore Biddle, 
prompted a second and more insistent overture. Com- 
manding a squadron of four war-ships, Commodore Perry 
appeared in Uraga Bay in 1853. He brought a letter from 
President Pierce, and said that he would return for an 
answer. By the time he came back, in February, 1854, 
the Japanese had made up their minds to abandon the 
policy of non-intercourse, because they were convinced that 
it could not be maintained. Perry had made a profound 
impression. He had uttered no threats; but when he 
returned with ten ships instead of four, the Japanese 
realized that if they did not sign a commercial treaty 
voluntarily they would be forced to do so. 

Now that international relations had become a world 
necessity, Japan could not remain aloof. Even if she could 
have lived on without foreign commerce, her islands lay 



132 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

along one of the world's great trade routes. Questions 
arose as to lighthouses, the charting of straits, open ports 
for coaling and refuge against storm, neutrahty in the 
event of war. And behind loomed the great issue of a 
recognized international status for Japan in order to pre- 
vent conflicts in the political and commercial rivalry of the 
Occidental powers in the Far East. 

It took nearly fifteen years for the Japanese to reconcile 
themselves to the presence of foreigners and the penetra- 
tion of Occidental civilization. The treaties negotiated by 
the United States and the European powers were not ac- 
cepted immediately. In unison and separately, the powers 
made naval demonstrations, and tmce there were bombard- 
ments. The Japanese finally accepted the new order, not 
because they had become convinced of the superiority of 
our ways over theirs, but in self-defense. 

Japan began the deliberate process of Occidentalizing 
herself in 1866. The result has been unique and startling 
— unique because Japan kept her independence, startHng 
because she has turned the tables on us and is beating us 
at our owai game. The aim of the European powers and 
the United States in the development of world politics is 
the extension of political control to secure markets and 
investment or colonizing areas.^ Until we confronted the 
new Japan, we assumed that the modern world order neces- 
sitated the political and economic subordination to th6 
white race of all other races. Where exclusive control by 
one Caucasian race was denied by other Caucasian races, 
wars were fought or threatened, and international diplo- 
macy arranged spheres of influence. During the past fifty 
years Japan succeeded first in eluding Caucasian overlord- 
ship, and then in setting herself up as one of the great 

^ We must remember that if the United States lays claim to a more altruistic 
foreign policy than the other powers, it is because our entry into world politics 
came much later than that of European states. Tlie reasons for this are 
explained in Cliapter XLVI. Willi surplus capital to invest and overseas trade 
to develop, where temptations have confronted us our policy has been different 
only in degree from that of the other powers. 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH CHINA (1894-1895) 133 

powers whose claims could not be ignored in the delimita- 
tion of spheres of influence. 

Consequently, in the study of world politics we must 
make a place for Japan among the world powers. She can 
not be considered in a category apart from the rest of us. 
Her international relations have followed the same evolu- 
tion, have been inspired by the same motives, have been 
guided by the same laws, and have displayed the same 
phenomena. Japan's foreign policy, like that of European 
powers, is explained by the instinct of self-preservation 
and the belief that prosperity depends upon a place in the 
sun secured by the exploitation of alien races through the 
use of force. 

Japan had a long struggle, however, to free herself from 
the infringements upon her sovereignty established by the 
original treaties with the United States and the European 
powers. During her first thirty years of contact with the 
world she allowed foreigners capitulatory rights similar to 
those enjoyed by Europeans and Americans in other Asi- 
atic countries. Originally, judicial and fiscal autonomy 
and extra-territoriality within prescribed areas had been 
as necessary for foreigners in Japan as in other countries 
where laws and customs were widely divergent from those 
of the Occident. 

But when Japan became what we call a civilized nation, 
with a judicial system like ours, and when the Japanese 
government was in a position to assure the protection of 
the rights of foreigners in every part of the country, the 
continuance of the capitulatory regime served only to work 
against the interests of the Japanese in their own land. 
In 1878, contingent upon similar action by the other powers, 
the United States agreed to the abolition of special privi- 
leges for Americans. Not until 1894, however, following 
eleven years of constant negotiations, were the old treaties 
finally abrogated. Immediately after Japan became mis- 
tress in her own house and was received by the other powers 



134 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

on a footing of equality, she issued her first challenge to 
the doctrine of European eminent domain. 

The peninsula of Korea juts out from the mainland of 
Asia towards Japan between the Japan Sea and the Yellow 
Sea. The Japan Sea is as important to Japan as is the 
North Sea to Great Britain. The Yellow Sea is as im- 
portant to China as is the stretch of the Atlantic between 
Boston and Newport News to the United States. Korea 
has been called a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan. 
This expression is no exaggeration. "Were Korea in the 
hands of any European power, the menace to Japan would 
be as the menace to Great Britain of Belgium in the hands 
of Germany. A European power ensconced in Korea could 
separate Japan from China and control the outlet of north- 
ern China to the Pacific. 

For many centuries Korea, like Japan, was a closed 
country. Attempts of missionaries and traders to pene- 
trate the peninsula were successfully resisted. Japan was 
open to foreign influence several decades before the 
Koreans were forced to allow foreigners to settle in their 
country. This fact alone frustrated the complete triumph 
of European eminent domain in Asia. For when the 
Koreans were called upon to incur the fate of other weak 
and backward Asiatic nations, the Japanese had become 
strong enough to have a foreign policy of their own and 
to anticipate the ambitions of European imperialism. The 
fear that Russia or Great Britain would get control of 
Korea led Japan to interfere in the internal affairs of the 
''hermit kingdom," to fight two costly wars, and finally to 
annex the whole peninsula. 

Between 1876 and 1892 the ports and interior of Korea 
were opened to foreign settlement, trade, and missionary 
effort by treaties with Japan, the United States, Germany, 
Great Britain, Italy, Russia, France, and Austria-Hungary. 
Immediately diplomatic agents of the powers began the 
traditional game of intriguing for exclusive concessions 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH CHINA (1894-1895) 135 

and political influence. As elsewhere in Asia, their efforts 
were powerfully helped by civil war and administrative 
anarchy, which they encouraged as much as they could. 
Plots were hatched in foreign legations, and unsuccessful 
revolutionaries found refuge in the legations. Under cover 
of the political instability of the first decade of Korea's 
entrance into the family of nations, the European powers 
tried to secure concessions for naval stations and to block 
the efforts of others in this direction. Japan championed 
complete Korean independence and opposed every scheme 
of Europeans to install themselves in the peninsula. When 
they saw that they could accomplish nothing against Japa- 
nese influence at Seoul, the powers remembered that China 
was the suzerain of Korea. Chinese statesmen were sus- 
ceptible to suggestions from all sides that they assert the 
rights of China in Korea; and, through fear and distrust 
of Japan, the Koreans were betrayed into the fatal mistake 
of playing up to China against Japan. 

In May, 1894, the situation that had been developing for 
years came to a crisis. The Korean government appealed 
to China for aid in putting down a serious insurrection. 
Without asking the cooperation of Japan, China sent to 
Seoul two thousand soldiers. This was a denial of the 
claim of equal interest in Korea, which Japan had been 
emphasizing for some years. Hence, on June 9, Japan 
landed an army of twelve thousand in Korea, and then 
proposed to the Korean government the adoption of a pro- 
gram of reforms essential to the maintenance of Korean 
independence. 

A new era was beginning in the history of the Far East. 
In their relations with each other, Japan and China had 
come to the point where they would have to adopt a com- 
mon policy in regard to European influences or become 
enemies. Against the protests of Japan, China had been 
granting concessions to the great powers that threatened 
to put the Far East under European control. The weak- 



136 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ness and corruption of Chinese statesmen were compromis- 
ing the interests of Japan as well as the interests of China. 
Russia, for instance, had been given by China a strong 
foothold on the coast of the Japan Sea north of Korea. 
The Japanese did not propose to permit Chinese suzerainty 
in Korea to balk their efforts to prevent the granting of 
concessions to European powers in the peninsula between 
the Yellow Sea and the Japan Sea. Japan invited China 
to join in helping Korea carry out the reasonable and prac- 
ticable program of reforms suggested. The answer of 
China was to advise Korea to reject the Japanese proposal. 

On July 23 Japanese troops seized the palace at Seoul 
and made the king prisoner ; and on August 1 both China 
and Japan declared war. The operations lasted, on land 
and sea, from September, 1894, to March, 1895, and ended 
in the complete defeat of China. This was the first mani- 
festation to the world of Japanese military and naval 
power. On April 17, 1895, by the treaty of Shimonoseki, 
China acknowledged the independence of Korea, ceded 
Formosa, the Pescadores, and the Liao-tung peninsula to 
Japan, and agreed to pay an indemnity of $158,000,000. 

Aghast at the success of Japan and determined to pre- 
vent a rival from entering where she aimed to rule, Russia 
asked the great powers to intervene to preserve the balance 
of power in the Far East. France and Germany answered 
favorably.^ The three powers, posing as defenders of the 
integrity of China, threatened Japan mth a new war un- 
less the territory ceded by China on the mainland was 
relinquished. Japan had to bow to superior force and 
gave up the Liao-tung peninsula. In return, China agreed 
to pay additional indemnity to the amount of $22,000,000. 

Although the Japanese felt very bitterly over the loss 
of the principal fruits of victory, the intei'vention of the 

^ The British Foreign Office and the government of India were developing a 
new case of nerves in regard to Kussian penetration in Asia, and began at this 
time the new leaning in Far Eastern policy that led seven years later to the 
alliance with Japan. 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH CHINA (1894-1895) 137 

three powers would have made for peace had the motive 
behind it been what it was professed to be. Soon, however, 
the Japanese found that China had granted a railroad con- 
cession to Russia in northern Manchuria, and had ceded 
territory to France in the Mekong Valley. In addition, 
both powers obtained concessions of land at Hankow ; Rus- 
sia was assured of the reversion of Port Arthur, which she 
was to help fortify; and France was given important rail- 
road and mining rights in the southern provinces of China. 
And Russia became the guarantor of a loan floated in Paris 
to pay the first instalment of the Japanese indemnity. 
Two years later, in 1897, Germany received her reward in 
the Shantung peninsula.^ 

When the Japanese saw that the European powers them- 
selves were ready to resort to force to exploit China and 
to prevent Japan from sharing in the exploitation, they 
realized that they would have to prepare for a test of arms 
with the European powers or become, in relation to Europe, 
as other Asiatic nations were. They could not fight against 
the united white race. They must seek an occasion to 
attack the Caucasian nations separately, and, if possible, 
be allied in the future wars with some of their rivals while 
they were eliminating others from the Far East. 

The intervention of Russia, France, and Germany robbed 
Japan of the Liao-tung peninsula and made certain an- 
other and more difficult war within a few years. Yet it 
brought her distinct advantages. She had become a factor 
to be reckoned with in international politics. She had as- 
serted her determination to play an important role in 
China, and had won the unquestioned right to be a partner 
on an equal footing with the other powers in any joint 
intervention in Chinese affairs. In annexing Formosa and 
the Pescadores she had removed the danger of an enemy 
naval base on her routes southward and westward, the two 
important lines of communication with the rest of the 

^See pp. 142, 200-202, 319. 



138 AN INTRODUCTION TO TVORLD POLITICS 

world. The immediate objective of the war was won. 
China was eliminated from Korea, and Japan no longer 
had to watch intrigues at Peking in connection A\dth the 
ambitions of foreign powers in the peninsula. 

The Japanese went ahead with the program of reforms 
originally proposed to be undertaken jointly wdth China, 
and Korea began to adapt herself to the necessary condi- 
tions of existence as a modern state. If the use of an 
army and a fleet by the Japanese was a revelation to Eu- 
rope, the work of Japanese counselors in Korea during the 
months following the war gave the spectacle of a new and 
disquieting stumbling-block in the path of European Far 
Eastern ambitions. The Japanese demonstrated that they 
had been studying the constructive side of European civil- 
ization no less carefully than military and naval matters. 

Excellent and wise in conception as were the Japanese 
reforms, the application of them was resented by a high- 
spirited people. The Koreans felt that they were being 
made to bear the burden of the disappointment and bitter- 
ness of the Japanese, who had built high hopes upon the 
victory over China. Moreover, Russia had not ^vithdra^vn 
from the struggle for the control of Korea. She was quick 
to take advantage of the growing hatred against Japan, 
which, on October 8, 1895, culminated in the storming of 
the palace and the assassination of the queen by a mob of 
Japanese partizans, among whom were Japanese soldiers. 
The king took refuge in the Russian legation. Encour- 
aged and powerfully aided by Russia, he not only reestab- 
lished the absolutist regime and abolished the reforms, but 
assumed the title of emperor. At the close of the century 
international intrigue in Seoul was worse than before the 
Sino-Japanese war. Several powers again vied \vith one 
another for concessions and privileges. But, with China 
eliminated, the competition for control soon narrowed do\\ni 
to a duel between Korea's other neighbors, Russia and 
Japan. 



n 



THE GREAT POWERS j,, 
IN CHINA 




I 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 

THERE is a parallel between the situation in the Near 
East after the Russo-Turkish War and that in the 
Far East after the Sino-Japanese War. In 1878 Great 
Britain intervened in the Near East to defend the integrity 
of the Ottoman Empire, menaced by the treaty of San 
Stefano. Russia, exhausted by her effort and unable to 
fight another war, agreed to the revision of the treaty by 
the Congress of Berlin. As a reward for her aid, Great 
Britain took Cyprus from Turkey, and shortly afterwards 
ensconced herself in Egypt. In 1895 Russia, France, and 
Germany intervened in the Far East to defend the integrity 
of the Chinese Empire, menaced by the treaty of Shimono- 
seki. Japan could not undertake another war, and had to 
yield. Russia and France immediately, and Germany two 
years later, made China pay a larger price than the loss of 
the Liao-tung peninsula would have been. 

In fact, if we leave France and Germany out of the reck- 
oning and consider only what Russia's share in the inter- 
vention cost China, we find that China had to borrow with 
a Russian guaranty the money to indemnify Japan for 
releasing the Liao-tung peninsula. The compensation for 
the guaranty was a railway concession in northern Man- 
churia. Within very few years Russia was in possession 
of northern Manchuria and had taken Japan's place in 
Liao-tung besides; and China owed Russia several times 
the amount she had paid to get Russia to prevent Japan 
from doing what Russia did. Great Britain's aid to Tur- 
key was the beginning of the partition of the Ottoman Em- 
pire. Russia's aid to China was the beginning of the 

139 



140 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

partition of the Chinese Empire. One feels that a weak 
state would do well to give ^neas 's answer to the proffered 
aid of a great power: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 

The intervention of the powers proved more disastrous 
to China than to Japan. For Japan, it was a temporary- 
setback. In China, it was the entering wedge of spoliation 
for both Russia and the other powers. The surrender of 
Chinese statesmen to the rapacious demands of the Euro- 
pean powers led directly to the Boxer Rebellion, which, in 
turn, gave the powers an excuse for trussing China more 
completely. 

Great Britain was invited to aid in modifying the treaty 
of Shimonoseki, but took no part and gave the Russians 
no encouragement. The British were not on friendly terms 
with Russia and France in Asia, and they had been quick 
to grasp the significance of the naval and military prowess 
shown by Japan. There was no reason for antagonizing 
the Japanese in a matter in which they had little interest. 
The Germans showed less political acumen. They, too, 
had no motive comparable to that of Russia in preventing 
the execution of the treaty. But Kaiser Wilhelm's obses- 
sion of ''the yellow peril" led them into an unnecessary 
joint action with Russia and France. The Germans of- 
fended the Japanese for nothing. With the French it was 
different. The Quai d'Orsay was preparing a political 
alliance with Russia, and outstanding negotiations concern- 
ing the frontiers of Indo- China with Siam and China made 
it a wise move to put Peking under obligations to Paris. 

For half a centuiy before the Sino-Japanese War, Great 
Britain, France, and Russia had been preying upon China. 
After 1895 Japan and Germany determined to get a share 
of the loot. The ambitions of both of these late-comers 
might have been thwarted had the other powers been con- 
tent to maintain the status quo. But no power was mlling 
to become the sponsor of China's territorial integrity and 
sovereignty. 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 141 

On March 1, 1894, an Anglo-Chinese treaty, fixing the 
Burma boundary, transferred to China territory east of the 
Mekong Eiver, with the stipulation, however, that it should 
remain under Chinese sovereignty. This was Great Brit- 
ain's answer to the Franco-Siamese treaty of the previous 
year, by which France had extended her Indo-Chinese 
frontier to the Mekong. But the plans of the British mis- 
carried. On June 20, 1895, China signed with France a 
treaty that was the beginning of a long series of European 
depredations. The territory lately acquired from Great 
Britain was now turned over to the French, together with 
mining concessions and railway rights in the Kiangsi and 
Yunnan provinces. Serious anti-foreign uprisings took 
place, directed against missionaries because they happened 
to be the only foreigners scattered in the interior. 

Great Britain protested against the Franco-Chinese 
treaty on the ground that it was a violation of the Anglo- 
Chinese treaty. But instead of insisting that France 
should give up what she had received, and standing behind 
China in a policy of special privileges for none and equal 
opportunity for all, the British forced China to "make 
compensation" by agreeing to a further extension of the 
frontiers of Burma. And on January 1, 1896, Great Brit- 
ain and France signed an agreement primarily concerning 
Siam, but introducing the principle of spheres of influence 
in China. These negotiations initiated a policy in regard 
to China that has been continued up to the present time. 
The great powers, including Japan, have pressed at Peking 
claims for territorial rights and concessions of every sort, 
and when the claims conflicted have settled their difficulties 
by negotiations with one another in which China, the party 
chiefly interested, has had no part. The Shantung clauses 
of the treaty of Versailles were not a new departure in Far 
Eastern diplomacy, but conformed to a policy that began 
when the treaty of Shimonoseki was revised. 

From 1896 to 1899 the great powers worked feverishly to 



142 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

establish political and economic control over China. On 
September 8, 1896, the Chinese-Russian agreement, signed 
at Peking, gave Russia the right to build the main line of 
the Trans-Siberian Railway across Manchuria, and, in 
clauses that were afterwards made more sweeping, vir- 
tually turned over northern Manchuria to that power. On 
November 14, 1897, a German fleet entered Kiau-chau, on 
the Shantung peninsula; a Russian fleet entered Port Ar- 
thur, on the Liao-tung peninsula, on December 18, 1897. In 
March, 1898, China leased Kiau-chau to Germany for 
ninety-nine years and Port Arthur to Russia for twenty- 
five years. The German lease carried with it a sphere of 
influence and railway and mining concessions, while the 
Russian lease made Port Arthur a closed naval base and 
gave Russia the right to connect the leased territory with 
the Trans-Siberian Railway in Manchuria. In April, China 
leased to France Kwang-chau for ninety-nine years, with 
railway concessions. On June 9 Great Britain secured a 
lease of mainland territory adjoining Hong-Kong, and on 
July 1 China agreed to let Great Britain have Wei-hai-wei, 
on the north shore of the Shantung peninsula, for as long 
as Russia occupied Port Arthur. Italy came into the game 
at the beginning of 1899 with a demand for a lease of a 
bay on the coast of Chekiang Province, mth hinterland 
concessions ; but, as the Italians did not have naval forces 
adequate to make good her demand, China was in this case 
able to refuse. 

The danger of wars among the powers over encroach- 
ments on Chinese sovereignty was avoided by reciprocal 
arrangements which they were able to work out. On April 
25, 1898, Russia agreed to recognize Japan's paramount 
interest in Korea in return for Japan's acceptance of the 
Russian naval base at Port Arthur. A year later, April 
29, 1899, Russia and Great Britain decided upon spheres of 
influence in China. Russia promised not to seek conces- 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 143 

sions in the Yangtze Valley, which meant central China, 
and Great Britain agreed to abandon to Eussia everything 
north of the Great Wall. 

Along with the treaties and agreements by which control 
of territory passed out of Chinese hands, loans and con- 
cessions further weakened China and paved the way for 
partition. Eailway and mining concessions were granted 
to French, Belgian, British, Russian, German, and Ameri- 
can companies. These arrangements offered limitless op- 
portunities for interference and brought the people of 
many localities into conflict with the foreigners. The 
Chinese government was forced into the position of having 
to take sides against its own subjects in defense of for- 
eigners who were shocking the sensibilities and sometimes 
disregarding the rights of the Chinese. At the same time, 
the Chinese were for the first time in their history begin- 
ning to feel the burden of taxes collected for the benefit, 
as they saw it, of foreigners. China borrowed abroad large 
sums in gold to pay the costs of the war with Japan and 
to meet the Japanese indemnity. In 1898 she owed nearly 
$265,000,000 to foreigners, all contracted within four years, 
with interest payable in gold. The loans were secured by 
customs receipts, over which Europeans were given control. 

While the spoliation of China was rapidly progressing, 
the United States suddenly became a colonial power with 
special interests in the Far East. The American people 
thought of the battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, only in 
terms of a victory in the war they were fighting, and did 
not realize what it meant to fall heir to Spain's largest 
Pacific possession. In fact, even after the treaty of peace 
with Spain was signed, few Americans understood that 
the United States had become a world power. Public opin- 
ion was not ready to back an aggressive American foreign 
policy. This fact, known to European statesmen, pre- 
vented our State Department from registering an emphatic 



144 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

protest and from assuring China that the United States 
would back her in refusing to yield to the European 
demands. 

Secretary Hay, however, did the best he could under 
the difficult handicap of American apathy and indifference. 
On September 6, 1899, he addressed an identical note to 
Great Britain, Russia, and Germany — and later to France, 
Italy, and Japan — asking them to agree to the principle of 
the ''open door" in China. Under the interpretation of 
the open door to which he demanded assent, no power 
could claim an exclusive sphere of influence; the Chinese 
tariif was to continue in full force throughout the empire 
and to be administered by Chinese officials ; and all nations 
were to be treated on a footing of equality in port dues and 
railway rates, irrespective of special agreements entered 
into between China and any other power or between any 
two powers. 

In their answers the powers approved the American posi- 
tion and stated that it was their o^vn. But none of them 
would bind itself explicitly to the open door. To keep the 
door open would have required a show of force, leading 
perhaps even to the use of force. American interests were 
not sufficiently important to warrant more than an aca- 
demic statement of our position. Meanwhile the greed, 
brutality, and hypocrisy of concession-hunters, officially 
backed by their respective governments, further aroused 
the resentment of the peace-loving Chinese and prepared 
the way for the Boxer Rebellion. In the mad struggle for 
leases and spheres of influence, Peking became a storm 
center of international politics, mth each power pitted 
against the others. In this imbroglio Japan, follo^^dng 
European methods, became a powerful factor, disturbing 
the combinations that had up to this time been purely Euro- 
pean. Occasions for friction were increased. The Japa- 
nese had originally interested themselves in China to pro- 
tect Japan and make Asia safe for the Asiatics ; but now 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 145 

Japanese capitalists and government officials were yielding 
to the temptation to despoil China for profit. 

At this juncture two forces arose to prevent the partition 
of China, or at least the further impairment of Chinese 
sovereignty and the economic exploitation of the country 
by foreigners. 

The first of these was the ferment of dissatisfaction 
among the Young Chinese, belonging to the official and 
commercial classes in the ports, who had come under the 
influence of Western education and who realized that the 
strength of Japan as opposed to the weakness of China lay 
in Japan's successful adaptation of Western civilization. 
The Young Chinese believed that their country could be 
saved from humiliation and slavery by the spread of West- 
em education and by adopting Occidental methods. As 
these things could be learned only by more intimate con- 
tact with Occidentals, they opposed neither missionaries 
nor concession-developers, and regarded treaty ports and 
foreign-built and foreign-run railways as necessary evils — 
to be endured until the nation was transformed. To rid 
the country of European influence and domination meant 
that there must be reforms in the administration, a 
stronger army and navy, a national spirit created through 
schools and newspapers, and eventually the overthrow of 
the Manchu dynasty with its military and civilian official- 
dom, which was always susceptible to the bribes of foreign 
legations. 

The other force was the spirit of reaction dominating 
those who wanted to see China undisturbed by Occidental 
influences. The reactionaries were not interested, as were 
the Young Chinese, in a strong and united China holding 
her o^vn with the great powers by adopting and developing 
the sources of strength of the modern state. They hated 
the foreigners because they instinctively felt that foreign 
control not only would provoke a movement of regeneration 
in China, but would also limit and destroy their power and 



146 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

privileges. The effort for reform inaugurated by the 
Young Chinese in 1898 caused them as much alarm as the 
encroachment of the European powers and Japan. The 
reactionaries prevailed over the Young Chinese because 
they were able to make use of a powerful agency to arouse 
the hatred of the common people. 

The war with Japan led to the foundation, in 1895, of a 
secret anti-foreign society, I-Ho-Chuan (''the righteous 
harmony fists ") . The members of this organization, called 
Boxers by missionaries and newspapers, were deceived by 
the ritual of initiation into believing that they were made 
invulnerable to swords and bullets. Gathering in Taoist 
and Buddhist temples, they swore to drive the foreigner 
and his religion out of China. The movement spread rap- 
idly in the northern provinces, and was helped by the 
affairs of Kiau-chau, Wei-hai-wei, and Port Arthur. The 
building of railways and the development of mines by for- 
eigners, and the creation of concession settlements in ports 
and railway centers, fanned the flame of hatred. 

In 1899 Yu-Hsien, founder of I-Ho-Chuan, became gov- 
ernor of the province of Shantung. Attacks upon foreign- 
ers began almost immediately. The murder of English 
missionaries in Shantung brought forth a strong protest 
from the British, French, German, and American ministers. 
In spite of promises from the empress-dowager, who was 
all-powerful, that the guilty parties would be punished, out- 
rages and murders became more frequent, both in Shan- 
tung and in Chih-li, the pro^dnce in which Peking is located. 
In March, 1900, another protest of the ministers, this time 
with the addition of the Italian minister, resulted in the 
appointment of Yuan-Shih-Kai as governor of Shantung, 
with orders to suppress the Boxers and an imperial re- 
script to the governor of Chih-li denouncing by name the 
Boxer Society. 

The empress-dowager soon showed that she was hand in 
glove with the Boxers. She secured from the emperor a 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 147 

decree in which he stated that because of bad health he 
could not have a son, and he asked the empress-dowager 
to select a successor to the throne. She named Pu Chung, 
son of Prince Tuan, who was a patron of the Boxer Society, 
and the headquarters of the movement were established in 
his palace. 

A Boxer proclamation was issued denouncing the em- 
peror and the mandarins as incompetent and corrupt, and 
declaring : 

''Foreign devils have come with their doctrine of Chris- 
tianity. Converts to their own Catholic and Protestant 
faiths have become numerous. These churches are devoid 
of human principles and full of cunning. They have at- 
tracted the greedy and avaricious as converts to an un- 
limited degree. They practise oppression and corruption 
until even the good officials have become covetous of foreign 
wealth and are servants to the foreigners. Telegraphs 
and railways have been established; foreign cannon and 
rifles manufactured; railway engines and electric lamps 
the foreign devils delight in. . . . The foreigners shall be 
exterminated; their houses and temples shall be burned; 
foreign goods and property of every description shall be 
destroyed. The foreigners shall be extirpated, for the 
purpose of Heaven is determined. A clean sweep shall be 
made. All this shall be accomplished mthin three years. 
The wicked can not escape the net of destruction. ' ' 

Prince Tuan made clever use of the discussion in Euro- 
pean parliaments and press, which spoke openly of the 
partition of China. In the successful encroachments of 
France, Russia, Germany, and Great Britain, and in the 
demand of Italy, which had been put forward at Peking 
in a brutal and undiplomatic manner, he had full proofs 
of European intentions. Circulars were sent to the provin- 
cial governors announcing the approaching massacre of 
foreigners; for the prince made no effort to conceal his 
intention of seizing the foreign ministers at Peking and 
holding them as hostages until Europe consented, in his 
own words, to treat China " as a sealed book. ' ' 



148 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

The Boxer uprising, whose imminence and seriousness 
the powers had failed to appreciate, broke out in Peking 
on June 13, 1900. The railway connecting Peking with 
Tientsin was hterally torn up, and the telegraph-poles 
were sawed off close to the ground. All foreign property 
in Peking was looted. Bodies were taken out of the graves 
in the foreign cemeteries and burned. For several days 
Prince Tuan and other members of the imperial family 
directed a massacre in which thousands of native Chris- 
tians were slain and which ended in a fire that burned the 
principal shops of Peking. 

Rescue parties sent out bj'' the legations saved several 
hundred women and children who had escaped death by 
hiding, and the foreigners in the city and refugees from 
the surrounding country were received in the legations. 
On June 19 the foreign ministers were informed that the 
powers were at war mth China, and that they must leave 
mthin twenty-four hours or the government could not be 
responsible for their safety. As it was impossible to start 
without knomng what means of transport were available 
and what measures had been taken to escort the foreigners 
to the coast, the ministers asked to be received by Prince 
Tuan to arrange for the departure. No replj^ came. The 
next morning, after a meeting at the French legation, they 
decided to go in a body to make representations to the 
government. On the way the German minister, Baron von 
Ketteler, was murdered by a Manchu official in full uni- 
form. The Chinese authorities told the ministers that they 
could give no guaranty of escort to Tientsin. 

For nearly two months about six thousand foreigners 
and Christian refugees, of whom more than half were in 
the grounds of the British legation, defended themselves 
against the mob and against government troops. When it 
became kno's^ni that an inter-allied relief column was ap- 
proaching Peking, a decree was issued ordering the foreign 
ministers to be conducted safely to the coast, '*iu order 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 149 

once more to show the tenderness of the Throne for the 
men from afar. ' ' But the foreigners preferred to trust to 
their own resources. On August 11 government troops 
began to bombard the British legation. The relief column 
reached Peking on the afternoon of the 13th, just two 
months after the uprising started. It was none too soon. 

The relief of Peking was an international operation. A 
first attempt with small forces from the war-ships of dif-^ 
ferent navies failed. On June 17 the international fleet 
had to fire on and capture the Taku forts. Then Tientsin 
was occupied. There was no news from Peking, and it was 
feared that all the Europeans had been massacred. The 
Eussians had only four thousand troops within reach, and 
the British three thousand. Two thousand Americans 
were despatched from the Philippines and eight hundred 
French from Indo-China. The Germans, Austrians, and 
Italians had virtually no free eifectives. Japan was called 
upon to save the day. She contributed ten thousand 
troops, half of the force that finally set out from Tientsin 
on August 4. It took nine days to reach Peking, and the 
losses of the international army were severe. On the 
morning after the entry into Peking, the empress-dowager 
and the imperial court fled to the province of Shansi, in 
the interior. But resistance continued, and the imperial 
city was not surrendered until August 26. 

After the relief of Peking the international troops con- 
tinued to increase in number, and under the command of 
Count von Waldersee the military occupation of the prov- 
ince of Chih-li was organized. There were divergent views 
among the powers as to the attitude to adopt. Eussia had 
agreed to the expedition only to relieve the legations, and, 
considering all of China north of Peking within her sphere 
of influence, she proposed to the associated powers the 
immediate evacuation of Peking. Japan supported this 
proposal because the continuance of European intervention 
was prejudicial to her interests. The Japanese felt, too, 



150 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

that delay in reestablishing the Chinese government in 
Peking was enabhng the Eussians to fasten their grasp on 
Manchuria. They were wild with apprehension over the 
news from this province, where the Russians had taken 
advantage of the Boxer troubles to bring in large forces, 
attack the Chinese troops, and intrench themselves in Muk- 
den, looting the palace and massacring civilian Chinese. 
All the powers were afraid that Germany would seize the 
opportunity to extend her influence from Shantung into 
Chih-h. 

These jealousies made acceptable the proposal of the 
empress-dowager, through Li Hung Chang, to conclude 
peace on the basis of an indemnity and reaffirmation or 
modification of old commercial treaties in return for the 
cessation of military operations and the withdrawal of 
foreign troops. Despite the insistence of Russia and 
Japan, the other powers refused to agree to evacuate 
Peking and Tientsin until peace was signed. On the con- 
trary, they reinforced their contingents so that not all of 
the cards should be in the hands of these two nations. 

Several months were spent in debate, and finally, on 
December 19, a joint note was sent to the Chinese govern- 
ment setting forth the demands agreed upon. The stipula- 
tions were : apology at Berlin by an imperial prince for the 
murder of the German minister; reparation to Japan for 
the murder of the chancellor of her legation; punishment 
of Princes Tuan and Chuang, and of other instigators and 
leaders of the Boxers ; erection of expiatory monuments in 
foreign cemeteries where tombs had been desecrated; per- 
mission to maintain permanent legation guards at Peking ; 
razing of forts at Taku and between Peking and the sea, 
and military occupation by international troops of the 
Tientsin-Peking railway line; assurance that provincial 
governors would be held personally responsible for viola- 
tion of the treaty and for future anti-foreign outbreaks; 
revision of commercial treaties; reform of the palace sys- 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 151 

tern of government at Peking; modification of court cere- 
monial for the reception of foreign ministers ; and payment 
of indemnities to governments, corporations, missionary- 
bodies, and individuals. 

The peace protocol was signed at Peking on January 
14, 1901. But when the conference began between the for- 
eign ministers and the government to arrange for putting 
the terms into effect, Li Hung Chang realized the lack of 
agreement among the powers. There was no solidarity in 
the negotiations. In private interviews he was able to 
secure a betrayal of the general interest of all by making 
an appeal to the special interests of each. Eussia was will- 
ing to encourage Chinese resistance to the punishment 
clause in return for additional advantages in the Manchu- 
rian treaty that she was then negotiating at Peking. Other 
powers, also, gave secret instructions to their ministers not 
to press claims for punishment too vigorously. Political 
and commercial considerations prevented insistence upon 
measures that would have been constructively helpful to 
China and that would have helped her to profit by the lesson 
of the Boxer Rebellion. 

On the other hand, all the powers except the United 
States were united in demanding exaggerated indemnities. 
By becoming creditors of the Chinese government they 
hoped to gain further economic advantages and to have 
means of keeping the country in tutelage. China was thus 
saddled with a debt whose principal, with interest at four 
per cent., amounted to nearly one and one half bilhon dol- 
lars. The amortization was to be completed in forty years. 
The legation compounds in Peking were united and sur- 
rounded by a loopholed wall, and China had to agree to the 
permanent maintenance of this fortress by legation guards. 
On September 17, 1901, Peking was evacuated. The court 
returned on January 7, 1902. 

While the negotiations were in progress Great Britain 
and Germany signed an agreement to observe a common 



152 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

policy in China. They promised to sustain the open door 
in every part of China where they exercised power, and 
not to ''make use of the present complication" to obtain 
for themselves territorial advantages. But they agreed 
that in case another power obtained tcrritonal advantages 
as a result of the Boxer Rebellion tliey would ''come to a 
preliminaiy understanding as to steps which may have to 
be taken for the protection of their o-\^ai interests in China. ' ' 

The participation of Germany in suppressing the Boxers 
received more attention from the world than its importance 
warranted. The murder of Baron von Ketteler was ample 
justification for Germany's particular interest in the ex- 
pedition to Peking. But Germany had only a handful of 
soldiers available, and the appointment of Field Marshal 
Count von Waldersee to command the international army 
was due, not to German pressure or intrigue, but to the 
hopeless jealousy among British and Russians and Japa- 
nese. Japanese and Russians vetoed each other, and the 
British were heavily involved in the Boer War. Unable 
to send many troops and fearful of a Russian or Japanese 
occupation of Peking, the British goverament suggested 
the appointment of a German in the hope that the kaiser 
would send a large force. He did. By the end of Novem- 
ber Germany had twenty thousand men in China. The 
official statement issued by the German government was 
dignified and reserved. It was declared that the army to 
be sent to China would be composed entirely of volunteers, 
that the purpose was to rescue Europeans in Peking and 
exact retribution for the murder of Baron von Ketteler and 
other atrocities, but that the partition of China was against 
German policy. It was the kaiser whose theatrical pro- 
nouncements discredited the German effort. He never lived 
down the speech in which he expatiated upon Attila and 
the Huns. 

On March 15, 1901, Chancellor von Biilow told the Reichs- 
tag that some powers pursued commercial interests and 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 153 

other powers played politics in China. Germany, he de- 
clared, was in the first category, and for this reason the 
Anglo-German agreement had been signed with the hope 
of maintaining the integrity of China as long as possible. 
The wording of the agreement showed that it had no refer- 
ence to Manchuria, where there were no German interests 
worth mentioning. "As regards the future of Manchuria, 
really, gentlemen, I can imagine nothing which we regard 
with more indifference. But it is our interest to see, in 
close cooperation with other powers, that China does not 
unduly diminish her resources until her debts are paid." 
The words of the German chancellor sum up tersely the 
cynical attitude of European statesmen towards China. 

Liberal circles in Great Britain felt during the siege of 
the legations that the delay in going to the relief of Euro- 
peans in Peking was due to the unwillingness of the other 
powers to allow the Japanese or the Russians to save the 
day. Clearly the risk was run of sacrificing helpless 
women and children to diplomatic considerations. The full 
extent of the immorality and lack of chivalry of interna- 
tional diplomacy was demonstrated when Indian troops, 
who had been despatched to protect foreigners in Shanghai, 
had to stay on their ships until a certain proportion of 
French and German troops landed. 

The tendency to lay the blame for the Boxer uprising at 
the door of Germany because she had seized Kiau-chau, 
and thus to exculpate the imperialism of the other powers, 
did not enter into the minds of the statesmen of the day. 
Speaking in Parliament on August 2, Sir Edward Grey 
declared that '^the idea that China was ripe for partition 
and that any liberty could be taken with her was the main 
fault of the present trouble." Mr. Broderick followed 
with a high tribute to Count von Waldersee. He said that 
England's interests were often found to be running side 
by side with those of Germany, that the government wel- 
comed German intervention, and that he hoped that "as 



154 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

good comrades, Germany and England might advance to- 
gether again, certainly to victory, and, let us all trust, also 
towards the strengthening of the ties between that great 
nation and ourselves." 

Not content with permission to construct the Trans- 
Siberian Eailway across Manchuria, or even mth economic 
and political control of the portion of Manchuria through 
which the railway ran, Russia wanted all Manchuria and 
the Korean and Liao-tung peninsulas. By secret negotia- 
tions mth Li Hung Chang, Russia secured — in addition to 
the railway from Mukden to the tip of the Liao-tung penin- 
sula and the Port Arthur and Dalnj^ concessions — land for 
a settlement at Tientsin, on the left bank of the river 
Pei-ho, opposite the British concession. This led to simi- 
lar demands from the other powers, and Tientsin, the port 
of Peking, presently became a center of international 
rivalry, mth the powers fighting for lands and wharves 
with complete disregard of Chinese sovereignty. 

Instead of withdrawing her troops from southern Man- 
churia and the province of Chih-li, Russia, through Li Hung 
Chang, tried in 1901 to negotiate a separate treaty with 
China. Some of the powerful mandarins, backed by pub- 
lic opinion in Peking and encouraged more or less openly 
by Great Britain and Japan, opposed the Russian demand, 
whereupon Russia presented the proposed treaty as an 
ultimatum, uith a date fixed before which the terms must 
be accepted. 

The demands were as follows: civil administration in 
Manchuria to be restored to China, but China to accept 
the assistance of Russia in keeping order, and Russia to 
maintain a military force for the protection of the Man- 
churian Railway ; no munitions of war to be imported and 
no military force to be kept in Manchuria without Russia's 
consent; no foreigners except Russians to be employed in 
organizing land and sea forces in north China; Chinese 
officials in Manchuria and Liao-tung who should prove ob- 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 155 

noxious to Russia to be dismissed ; the district of Kin-chau, 
at the northern end of the Liao-tung Grulf, to pass under 
Russian administration; no mining or railway concessions 
to be granted to foreigners in Manchuria, Mongolia, or 
Turkestan ; indemnity for injury to Russian interests and 
for Russian expenses in Manchuria arising from the Boxer 
troubles ; the damage caused to the Manchurian Railway to 
be compensated by a new concession or modification of the 
old one ; and a Russian railway connecting the Manchurian 
Railway with the Great Wall. These arrangements were 
tantamount to Russian control from Petrograd to Peking. 

At first, China resisted; and after the protocol to settle 
the Boxer affair had been signed Russia presented a new 
project very similar to the ultimatum. At this juncture 
Li Hung Chang died. But the Russian troops remained in 
Manchuria, and Russia was in a position to exercise the 
rights that China refused to grant. The Trans-Siberian 
Railway was completed in November, and the Russians pre- 
pared Dalny as the terminus of the Liao-tung branch. In 
defiance of China and the powers and in violation of their 
rights, the Russians also remained in occupation of the 
treaty port of Niuchuang. 

In January, 1902, Great Britain and Japan informed 
China that they would not assent to the concession of ex- 
clusive rights to Russians in Manchuria ; and several weeks 
later the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which promised the in- 
tegrity and independence of China and equal trade oppor- 
tunities for all, was made known to the world. The United 
States also protested vigorously at Petrograd and Peking, 
and was assured that equal commercial rights would be 
maintained within the '^Russian zone." The same assur- 
ance was given to Great Britain and Japan. France did 
not ask for it; nor did Germany. It was no secret that 
French capitalists expected to draw the biggest portion of 
the profit from Russian exploitations in Manchuria. And 
Germany intended to watch closely every step in Russian 



156 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

encroachment. Any additional privilege granted to Eus- 
sia in Manchuria would be regarded as an excuse for 
demanding the same privilege in Shantung. 

A Eusso-Chinese agreement was signed on April 8, 1902. 
Eussia promised to mthdraw her troops from Manchuria 
within eighteen months, to restore the entire Manchurian 
Eailway to China, to intrust the guarding of the railway 
to Chinese troops, and to consider Manchuria as ''an in- 
tegral portion of the Chinese Empire. ' ' On the other hand, 
China was to put the executive control of the railway into 
Eussian hands, and to grant no concessions for other rail- 
way construction in Manchuria mthout the consent of Eus- 
sia. This was what the world at first knew. Eussia had 
also asked for secret clauses, accompanying the agreement, 
by which China would grant exclusive railway and mining 
exploitation in Manchuria to the Eusso-Chinese Bank. But 
these clauses were discovered by the other powers, and the 
convention was signed mthout them. 

The railway to the tip of the Liao-tung peninsula was 
completed at the end of July, 1903. But during its con- 
struction Eussia made excuses for faiUng to ^rithdraw 
troops from Manchuria, and tried to get China to agree 
to their retention and also to close Manchuria, including 
Liao-tung, to foreign trade other than Eussian. Instead of 
evacuating Manchuria on October 8 (the limit of the period 
allowed), she held military and naval manojuvers at Port 
Arthur, and on October 28 reoccupied Mukden with strong 
forces. Admiral Alexieff gave the excuse that Eussia had 
found it impossible to ''extend civilization in Manchuria" 
without administering the country. At the same time 
reports reached the outside world that the Eussians had 
erected forts in northern IMongolia and were sending their 
agents, commercial and political, into that province. Eus- 
sian engineers were also surveying a railway route there. 

Once more, as at the time of the Eussian menace to 
Korea, China was at the parting of the ways. Yuan-Shih- 



ATTEMPT TO PARTITION CHINA (1895-1902) 157 

Kai, who came to the front as new commander-in-chief of 
the Chinese army, declared for a policy of rapprochement 
with Japan. He tried to get Peking to see that Eussia 
might fight for Manchuria. By declaring war on Russia 
and inviting the cooperation of Japan, China could antici- 
pate Japanese action and save Manchuria and the Liao- 
tung peninsula. Yuan-Shih-Kai was not listened to. Eu- 
ropean representatives at Peking, while opposing Russia 
and each other, worked against an agreement between the 
two Oriental states. 

The result of failure to follow Yuan-Shih-Kai 's advice 
has been constant antagonism between China and Japan, 
whose real interests on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War 
were identical. Chinese statesmen failed to see that by 
siding with Japan China might have defended her terri- 
torial integrity and her sovereignty against all foreign en- 
croachment. While Japan engaged in a life-and-death 
struggle with Russia, China remained neutral, suffering 
the ignominy of neutrality with all the inconveniences of 
belligerency. In Manchuria the inhabitants saw their 
homes destroyed, their possessions subjected to requisition, 
and civilians forced to work for both armies. Japanese 
and Russians lived on the country, and finally made peace 
with each other, disregarding China and dividing between 
themselves one of her largest and richest provinces. 



CHAPTER XII 

JAPAN'S SECOND CHALLENGE TO EUROPE: THE WAB 
WITH RUSSIA (1904-1905) 

HAD Russia limited her activity in the Far East to 
Manchuria, Japan probably would have waited 
longer to issue her second challenge to Europe. For the 
long lease of Port Arthur and the concession to connect 
the main line of the Manchurian Railway with the Liao- 
tung peninsula were Russia's share in the partition of 
China agreed upon by four European powers. Japan could 
not fight them all, and Russian aggression, if it had stopped 
in Manchuria, could harqlly have been regarded by Japan 
as more menacing than that of the other powers. Although 
the fortification of Port Arthur was a direct challenge to 
Japan, the Japanese saw that the European powers, who 
had united to prevent them from getting a foothold in 
China, were not effectively opposing the ambitions of Rus- 
sia. Even Great Britain, Japan's new ally, had recently 
entered into a spheres-of-influence agreement with Russia, 
leaving to the Russians all of China north of the Great 
vVall. 

But when Russia, after completing the Trans-Siberian 
Railway, made a settlement on the left bank of the Yalu 
River, in Korean territory, and secured a concession from 
Korea for a naval base at Masan-pho, a port opposite 
Japan, the Japanese had to choose between fighting Russia 
or allomng Russia to become the dominant power in the 
Far East. The second alternative was never entertained 
for a moment. During the decade that followed the war 
-^dth China, the Japanese strained every nerve in prepar- 
ing to expel Russia from China, Manchuria, and Korea. 

158 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH RUSSIA (1904-1905) 159 

They consented to stupendous financial sacrifices to build 
up their army and navy. In realizing that military 
strength could not be developed apart from industrial and 
commercial growth, they followed the example of Germany. 

In June, 1903, General Kuropatkin, Eussian minister of 
war, visited Tokio as the guest of the emperor. He was 
given a friendly reception. Japanese statesmen insisted 
strongly upon the desire of Japan to prevent war. The 
tone of the Russian press, also, was moderate and friendly. 
But while the Russians were prodigal with assurances of 
admiration and friendship for Japan, words were not trans- 
lated into actions. Russia continued to occupy Phyong-an 
Do on the Korean side of the Yalu River, to fortify Port 
Arthur, and to build up a Pacific fleet. The encroachments 
upon Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria and the provinces 
north of Peking were more alarming than ever. 

On August 12, 1903, the Japanese ambassador at Petro- 
grad presented a proposal for arranging the mutual inter- 
ests of Russia and Japan in Manchuria and Korea. The 
Japanese demanded the fulfilment of the agreement Russia 
had signed with Japan in 1898, by which both powers 
recognized Korea's independence. But at the same time 
Japan desired Russia to recognize the Japanese agreement 
mth Korea of the same year, which granted Japan prefer- 
ential rights for railway construction. For several months 
there was a deadlock in the negotiations. A conference 
was held in Tokio in October between the members of the 
Japanese cabinet and the Elder Statesmen. The latter 
urged the cabinet to make all possible concessions to 
Russia. 

But public opinion in Japan was thoroughly aroused. 
It was felt that an indefinite continuation of negotia- 
tions would simply mean allowing Russia more time to 
strengthen her naval and military position in Liao-tung and 
Manchuria. The proposal of the Elder Statesmen that 
Japan limit her demands to a pledge from Russia to respect 



160 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

both the sovereignty and the integrity of China and Korea 
was considered as a makeshift to put off the evil day. The 
Japanese cabinet summoned Russia to recognize the inde- 
pendence and integrity of the Cliinese and Korean empires ; 
to admit Japan's special interests in Korea in return for 
Japan's admission of Russia's special interests in Man- 
churia; and the mutual declaration of equality of oppor- 
tunity for Russia and Japan in concessions and trade in 
both Manchuria and Korea. November passed without 
an answer from Russia. 

On December 5 the Japanese diet met and voted con- 
fidence in the cabinet only mth the stipulation that imme- 
diate action be taken. The emperor addressed the diet in 
person on December 10, declaring that his ministers had 
shown prudence and circumspection in the negotiations to 
protect the rights and interests of Japan. The diet unani- 
mously replied that the cabinet was temporizing at home 
and neglecting opportunities abroad. The emperor dis- 
solved the diet. It could not be concealed, however, that 
Russia had sent an unsatisfactory reply and that the Rus- 
sian military authorities were pouring troops into Man- 
churia. The Japanese press called upon the government 
to declare war. 

On December 21 Russia was asked to reconsider her 
reply. The answer, received on January 6, demanded 
recognition by Japan of Manchuria and the Liao-tung 
peninsula as outside the Japanese sphere of interest, and 
consented not to interfere ^^ith the enjoyment by Japan 
and other powers of treat^^ rights acquired TN^thin Man- 
churia. The establishment of foreign settlements in the 
province was, however, excepted ; and Japan was informed 
that if a neutral zone were established, it must be on the 
Korean side of the Yalu River alone, and that Japan must 
promise to refrain from using any part of Korea for 
strategic purposes. With the single modification that she 
was willing to pledge herself not to act in advance of any 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH RUSSIA (1904-1905) 161 

other power in regard to settlements in Manchuria, Japan 
rejected the Russian proposals. Japanese statesmen may 
have hoped for a further reply and new proposals from 
Russia. If they did, they were disappointed. On the other 
hand, Russian statesmen did not seem to regard their 
silence as making war inevitable. They affected astonish- 
ment in Petrograd when, on February 6, the Japanese min- 
ister demanded his passports. 

A Russian official communique, given to the press on 
February 9, also asserted the surprise of the Russian gov- 
ernment at the events immediately following the breaking 
off of diplomatic relations by Japan. The Russians tried 
to make it seem that they had no intention of entering into 
war with Japan, and that Japan was the aggressor. The 
Russian note said that the army in Manchuria numbered 
barely one hundred thousand. But a nation pursuing an 
imperialistic policy should never be surprised if an- 
other nation prefers to declare war rather than to accept 
a change of the economic and political status quo in terri- 
tories where that change affects security and economic 
prosperity. 

The day after the Japanese minister left Petrograd, 
Admiral Uriu appeared before the port of Chemulpo and 
ordered a Russian cruiser and a Russian gunboat to leave 
the harbor within twenty-four hours. The commanders 
of French, British, American, and Italian war-ships in the 
port protested, but to no avail. By refusing to receive the 
protest. Admiral Uriu signified to the powers the disap- 
pearance of the last vestige of their tutelage over Japan. 
A new *' great power" had been born in the decade follow- 
ing the Sino-Japanese War. If Europe and America 
needed a demonstration of this unpalatable fact, they were 
not to wait long. The two Russian war-ships made an 
attempt to escape. Not succeeding, they returned towards 
the port and sank themselves in shallow water. On the 
same day the main Japanese fleet attacked the Russian 



162 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

fleet outside the harbor of Port Arthur, inflicted consider- 
able damage, and forced the Russians to withdraw under 
the protection of the guns of the fortress. For two months 
Admiral Togo kept the Russian fleet busy by repeated and 
daring torpedo-boat attacks. He was unsuccessful, as the 
Americans had been at Santiago, in trying to bottle up 
Port Arthur by sinking ships at the mouth of the channel. 
But he kept firing into the harbor and prevented the Rus- 
sians from coming out. On April 13 the Russians lost two 
battle-ships by running into a mine-field. The Vladivostok 
squadron had succeeded in making a few raids in the Japan 
Sea, but failed to interrupt the transport of the Japanese 
army into Korea. 

The Japanese navy controlled the sea absolutely through- 
out the war. Russia attempted only once to challenge this 
control, which made possible the use of the Korean penin- 
sula as a base for attacking the Russians in Manchuria. 
The Russian fleets in the Baltic and Black seas, comprising 
thirty-six vessels, were sent out to the Far East in the 
early spring of 1905. The Japanese annihilated them. 

In the meantime, by brilliant campaigning the three 
Japanese armies defeated the superior Russian forces in 
the Shengking Province, northwest of Korea. Port Arthur 
was captured after heroic assaults on January 1, 1905. 
In March the Russian army met disaster in the battle of 
Mukden, largely through the skilful use by the Japanese of 
their artillery. So signal was the defeat that the Japanese 
might easily have captured the entire Russian forces, had 
they not themselves been exhausted after three weeks of 
continuous marching and fighting. These victories, fol- 
lowed by the total destruction of Russian sea power, raised 
the morale of both civilian and military Japan to the high- 
est pitch. 

But the Japanese were not in an enviable position for 
forcing the end of the war on land. They captured the 
island of Sakhalin in Julv and sent two armies to invest 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH RUSSIA (1904-1905) 163 

Vladivostok. Further military operations might, indeed, 
have led to a second Mukden. But would it have been 
worth while to make a new effort in Manchuria without the 
certainty of winning a decision? The fall of Vladivostok 
might have proved as indecisive, from a strategical point of 
view, as the fall of Port Arthur. Japan controlled the 
sea. The capture of another seaport would not have 
brought the Russians to the point of capitulation. Even 
if they were driven out of Manchuria and the maritime 
province as well, the Russian armies would still have been 
a menace. The fact that Russia's lines of communication 
were direct lines by land, over her own territory, has al- 
ways had to be faced by the Japanese, in peace as in war. 
The Russian government, on the other hand, did not want 
to risk losing Vladivostok and the entire maritime province, 
when there was little hope of turning the fortune of arms 
in Manchuria. Petrograd was also on the verge of an in- 
ternal revolution. 

As both sides were in a mood for peace, and were willing 
to compromise rather than continue a costly war in which 
further advantages for Japan or retrieving of fortunes 
for Russia seemed improbable, an overture of mediation 
from President Roosevelt met with success. Fighting in 
Manchuria ceased at the beginning of summer, and on 
August 9 the Japanese and Russian plenipotentiaries met 
at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Among their stipula- 
tions, the Japanese demanded a pecuniary indemnity and 
the cession of Sakhalin — two points on which the Russian 
plenipotentiaries did not have power to yield. After a 
fortnight of debate, during which all the other conditions 
were agreed upon, Russia consented to compromise by ced- 
ing the southern half of Sakhalin, while Japan waived 
her claim to an indemnity. The treaty of Portsmouth, 
signed on September 5, was ratified in October by both 
countries. 

In the treaty Russia recognized Japan's paramount in- 



164 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

terests in Korea; transferred to Japan her lease of Port 
Arthur and all concessions, establishments, and railway 
and mining rights in the Liao-tung peninsula and southern 
Manchuria; ceded the southern half of Sakhalin; and 
granted fishing rights to the Japanese in the Pacific waters 
of Russia. There was a reciprocal undertaking to evacu- 
ate Manchuria and restore to China sovereign rights 
throughout the province; also to give up prisoners and 
pay the expenses of their maintenance during the war. An 
additional provision regulated the strength of the military 
forces Russia and Japan were to keep in Manchuria to 
protect the railways and other concessions. 

When the terms of the treaty were made public, the 
Japanese people, who naturally considered themselves the 
victors in the war, were deeply disappointed. Riots broke 
out in Tokio and elsewhere. In particular, the people felt 
that the waiving of an indemnity was putting upon them 
the financial burden of a war they had not sought. They 
did not see why Russia should be allowed to retain any 
interests in Manchuria and be left in undisturbed posses- 
sion, without restrictions, of Vladivostok. 

It soon came to be admitted, however, that the prolonga- 
tion of the war for the sake of an indemnity might have 
meant thro^^dng good money after bad. As for Sakhalin, 
Vladivostok, and northern Manchuria, the compromise led 
to the establishment of friendly relations with Russia. In 
the minds of Japanese statesmen there was no longer rea- 
son for fearing Russia or considering Russia an enemy 
after that power had been expelled from Korea and 
the Liao-tung peninsula and had agreed to di\dde Man- 
churia. 

The moderation sho\vn by the Japanese at Portsmouth 
was as good politics as was their forbearance during the 
negotiations preceding the war. In the fulfilment of the 
aspiration of Japan to be the dominant power in the Far 
East, the expulsion of Russia from Korea and the sea-coast 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH RUSSIA (1904-1905) 165 

of Cliina was the first point gained. None could deny the 
legitimacy of the aspiration — if Japan were going to use 
her power to protect other Asiatic nations against Europe, 
as the United States was doing in maintaining the Monroe 
Doctrine on behalf of other American nations. Japan 
would recover from the strain of 1904 and 1905, and would 
again feel herself strong enough to hold her own against 
Europe. Then, at the first good opportunity, would come 
the turn of the European powers to be ousted from China. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE REVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 

THE expansion of Great Britain has not been accom- 
plished without bitter opposition on the part of a 
considerable element in the British electorate. More than 
once a general election has been influenced by the polemics 
of the Little Englander group of thinkers and politicians. 
Gladstone and many of his Liberal supporters were avowed 
anti-imperialists. And yet, Liberal governments did not, 
on coming into power, discard the foreign policies they 
had attacked when out of office. We have already seen how 
during Gladstone's second premiership (1880-85) Egypt 
was occupied. North Borneo acquired, the British New 
Guinea Company formed, and protectorates proclaimed 
over vast territories in different parts of Africa.^ Glad- 
stone returned to power for a few months in 1886, and for 
a fourth time from 1892 to 1894. In the intervals Lord 
Salisbury was premier. The Liberal government did not 
fall for more than a year after Gladstone's last resignation. 
In the summer of 1895 Lord Salisbury formed his third 
cabinet, and he directed the destinies of the British Empire 
throughout the period under survey. 

During the decade of Liberal and Conservative ins and 
outs (1885-95) the Irish question and other domestic 
policies had held the floor. Public opinion was indifferent, 
if not actually hostile, to imperialism. The Conservative 
party was changing and the Liberal party was being dis- 
rupted under influences and because of issues other than 
those that had ordinarily divided sharply the followers of 
Gladstone and the followers of Disraeli. For all that, the 

» See pp. 69, 78-79, 89-95. 

166 



EEVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 167 

empire did not cease to grow. Protectorates were estab- 
lished over the Niger coast, Zanzibar, Pemba, and Uganda ; 
while in India Sikkim was acquired, and in the Indian 
Ocean and the Pacific, Sokotra, Sarawak, British New 
Guinea, and the Solomon and Gilbert Islands were brought 
under the British crown. The nation, however, knew little 
or nothing of these additions to the empire, and as none of 
them involved the country either in a conflict with any other 
great power or in a colonial war, the Foreign Office was not 
called upon to submit its activities to the approval or dis- 
approval of Parliament. It is only when foreign policies, 
which for years may have passed unobserved, begin to 
demand large financial appropriations or have led to trou- 
ble that the people are aware of the responsibilities as- 
sumed in their name. 

The third Salisbury ministry marked the full and final 
coalition of the Conservative and Liberal Unionist parties. 
The leader of the latter party, Joseph Chamberlain, became 
Lord Salisbury's colonial secretary. Long before the split 
between Gladstone and Chamberlain, Gladstone had spoken 
of his president of the Board of Trade (this was the port- 
folio held by Chamberlain in the second Gladstone min- 
istry) as his only jingo member. Chamberlain believed in 
the imperial destiny of Great Britain, and became a power- 
ful influence in shaping foreign policies aggressively at a 
time when many statesmen and publicists believed that the 
honor and interests of Great Britain demanded casting off 
some of the existing colonial burdens rather than assuming 
additional ones. 

During the first year of the new ministry war was twice 
narrowly averted — with France over Siam and with the 
United States over Venezuela. For the moment Asia and 
South America held secondary places in British foreign 
policy, whose immediate interest was the consolidation and 
extension of the African colonies. The Siamese question 
was complicated by the fact that Eussia and France were 



168 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

forming an offensive and defensive alliance, and Great 
Britain did not relish a war with two powers in Asia simul- 
taneously with the development of a crisis in South Africa. 
And it was not good statesmanship to come to blows with 
the United States over the Monroe Doctrine, the mainte- 
nance of which was far from disadvantageous to British 
interests in America.^ 

It is impossible to present within brief compass a clear 
picture of the revival of British imperialism under the 
third Salisbuiy cabinet by follo^^'ing chronologically the 
military and diplomatic moves by which Great Britain out- 
distanced her rivals. "We must, therefore, consider succes- 
sively the Far East, west Africa, the Sudan, and south 
Africa. 

In the Far East British encroachment upon the sov- 
ereignty of China and Siam through Burma, and French 
encroachment through Tonkin and Anam, brought the two 
European powers to the verge of war.- Each feared that 
the other was going to annex Siam, and the British were 
afraid that the French, not content ^\^th Tonkin, would 
attempt to annex the rich Chinese province of Yunnan as 
they themselves had annexed Burma. To avoid war, the 
Anglo-French agreement of January 5, 1896, provided for 
the neutralization of the valley of the Menam and its tribu- 
taries and for the recognition of territories to the east as 
French and to the west as British spheres of influence. 

Difficulties with France on the southern frontier were 
no sooner settled than Great Britain had to face a new 
situation arising in the Far East through the efforts of 
other powers to gain naval bases and spheres of influence 
in China and to extend their sovereignty over Pacific 
islands. Up to this time France and Russia had been her 
only rivals. But the Sino-Japanese War gave Formosa to 

»See pp. 341-343. 

'Seo pp. Gl-62, 18G, 192. 



REVIVAI' OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 169 

Japan in 1895, and the Spanish-American War gave the 
Philippines to the United States in 1898. The weakening 
of China brought. Russia into Manchuria and the Liao-tung 
peninsula in 1896, and Germany into the Shantung penin- 
sula in 1898. The elimination of Spain gave Germany the 
Caroline, Pelew, and Marianne Islands (with the exception 
of Guam) in 1899. At this time British statesmen were not 
greatly alarmed at the appearance of the United States and 
Germany as factors in Far Eastern affairs. These two 
powers had not yet begun extensive naval-building pro- 
grams. But Russia, financed by France, was beginning to 
construct a formidable navy and was pushing her railways 
into Manchuria, thus simultaneously (as the British 
thought) threatening the British supremacy on the sea and 
their privileged commercial position in China. ^ 

Two agreements were signed with Germany. By the 
first, on November 14, 1899, Great Britain renounced all 
rights over the two largest Samoan islands in favor of 
Germany and over the other islands of the group in favor 
of the United States. This agreement, which gave in ex- 
change the right to Great Britain to annex the Tonga 
(Friendly) Islands, was ratified by the United States in 
January, 1900. As a warning to Russia, the British and 
Germans signed an agreement on October 17, 1900, pledg- 
ing themselves mutually to maintain the territorial integ- 
rity of China and the ''open door." But this agreement 
can be interpreted only as an effort to cry quits when the 
two powers realized that further impairment of Chinese 
sovereignty would be to their disadvantage. France in 

^ On December 13, 1897, Russian war-ships entered Port Arthur. The lease 
of territory to Eussia on the Liao-tung peninsula was the beginning of the 
scramble for leases at Peking. It marked the beginning, also, of Great 
Britain's huge naval-building program, two years before Kaiser Wilhelm, 
at the launching of the WittelsbacJi in July, 1900, declared that "the ocean 
is indispensable to German greatness. " It is clear to the reader of the annual 
parliamentary debates over the budget that when they began their great naval 
expansion in 1898 — and for some years later — the British had in mind Eussia 
and France as the potential enemies of the British Empire. 



170 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Indo-China and Russia in Siberia had bases from which to 
operate in their predatory diplomatic activities, while 
Japan was steadily growing stronger. 

Great Britain and Germany were not in a position to 
convince either China or the other powers of their good 
faith in issuing this warning. For both had participated 
in the attempt to partition China, and they were not mll- 
ing to listen to the suggestion of the United States that the 
best way to bring about peace in China after the Boxer 
Eebellion and to help in the rehabilitation of China was to 
restore what they had taken and to refrain from exacting 
a heavy Boxer indemnity. British statesmen had not in- 
tervened at Peking to prevent the leasing of bases on the 
Liao-tung peninsula to Russia and on the Shantung penin- 
sula to Germany. Instead of protesting, they demanded 
compensations, and forced China to give to Great Britain 
Wei-hai-wei on the Shantung peninsula and a lease of 
the mainland opposite Hong-Kong to boot. France con- 
doned these depredations by compelling Peking to give her 
a lease at Kwang-chau Wan on the Lien-chau peninsula. 
The gromng power of Russia, and especially the naval 
bases of Port Arthur and Vladivostok, induced the British 
to encourage what they knew to be the ambition of Japan — 
the elimination of Russian naval and political power in the 
Pacific. To this end an alliance was signed on January 
30, 1902, which pledged Great Britain to come to the aid 
of Japan should France join Russia in the event of a war 
between Japan and Russia.^ This alliance, which has been 
twice renewed and is still in force, was invoked against 
Germany in 1914.^ 

The third SaUsbuiy ministry carried on wars in west 
Africa, the Sudan, and south Africa; each of which re- 

' See p. 13fi, footnote. 

'See p. 318. The four -power pact, adopted by the British, Japanese, French, 
and American delegates at the Washington conference, is popularly supposed 
to have superseded the alliance, but it has not yet been definitely abrogated. 
Both in London and Tokio there is difference of opinion as to the status of 
the Anglo-Japanese alliance after the ratification of the four-power pact. 



REVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 171 

suited in annexation of territories, consolidation of titles 
already acquired, administrative reorganization, and a 
sweeping extension of effective administrative control. 
Before 1895 Great Britain was only potentially the pre- 
dominating power in Africa. After 1902 she had become 
so in fact. The effort was costly in human life and treas- 
ure. Had France and Germany been on friendly terms it 
could not have been accomplished and would have resulted 
in a European war. But the cards lay right for Great 
Britain and she played them well. Out of these seven 
years of almost constant fighting emerged West Africa, the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the Union of South Africa. 

"West Africa consists of four territories — the Gambia 
colony and protectorate, the Sierra Leone colony and pro- 
tectorate, the Nigeria colony and protectorate, the Gold 
Coast colony and Northern Territories protectorates. 
Ashanti, which is technically a colony, is attached to the 
Gold Coast.^ Until the end of the nineteenth century the 
boundaries of the colonies were not definitely established, 
and the native chieftains of the hinterland acknowledged 
British suzerainty not at all or fitfully. It was only when 
France and Germany began to explore the head-waters of 
rivers and to stake out vast regions of the interior, which 
had not hitherto been mapped, that Great Britain felt the 
necessity of insisting upon boundary conventions. This 
meant negotiations with the French and German govern- 
ments, and at the same time punitive expeditions to secure 
the submission of tribes over whom suzerainty was claimed. 

In regard to the frontiers of Gambia and Sierra Leone 
there had been boundary conventions with France in 1882, 
1889, and 1891. In 1889 the second convention had given 
the general lines, and these had been corrected in 1891. 
But further exploration and the development of colonial 
ambitions made necessary an exact setting down of what 
had been in large part guess-work. The fourth Anglo- 

^For the earlier history of the British west African colonies see p. 79. 



172 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

French boundary convention, in 1895, marked the begin- 
ning of an effort to delimit the frontiers. In Sierra Leone 
the boundary with Liberia was first established in 1902, 
and in Gambia the final settlement of the limits of French 
and British authority was reached in 1899. The British 
were compelled to exert themselves to render the agreement 
effective. A portion of the hinterland was annexed to the 
colony in 1901, and the rest was gradually ''pacified" dur- 
ing the first years of the twentieth century. 

In the Gold Coast and in Nigeria boundary agreements 
had to be made mth the Germans as well as the French. 
These agreements were concluded at different times be- 
tween 1889 and 1906. The most important ones for the 
Gold Coast were the Anglo-French convention of 1898 and 
the Anglo-German convention of 1899, while Nigeria settled 
most of her difiiculties with France in 1904 and \\dth Ger- 
many in 1902. The arrangements mth France in 1898 
and with Germany in 1899 w^ere followed by definitive 
annexation of Ashanti. The king had been deposed 
in 1896. A rebellion was crushed in 1900, and Ashanti was 
annexed to the British croA\Ti in 1901. The most important 
step in the extension of direct British sovereignty over 
west Africa was made after the narrow escape from war 
with France. The vast territories of the Royal Niger Com- 
pany were taken over by the British government in 1899 
and 1900. 

The reconquest of the Sudan, whose evacuation in 1885 
had been a great blow to British prestige,^ was possible 
only when Lord Cromer made Eg^^Dt's revenues exceed her 
expenditures and when Lord Kitchener got an Egyptian 
army into good fighting shape. Not before then could the 
argument be used in press and Parliament that Egypt her- 
self would contribute substantially in men and money to 
an expedition against the Mahdi, who had been supreme 

'See pp. 93-94. 



REVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 173 

ruler of the Sudan ever since he had killed General Gordon. 
For years Lord Cromer skilfully introduced and empha- 
sized in his annual reports the necessity of the reclamation 
of the Sudan. Never could there be security in upper 
Egypt until the Mahdi's dervish hordes were crushed. 
Never would irrigation projects on a large scale be justi- 
fiable until the head-waters of the Nile were under Anglo- 
Egyptian control. Never would the African slave traffic 
be stopped until the region from Wady Haifa to the equator 
was policed by Europeans. Common humanity and moral 
responsibility (arising from the fact that Great Britain 
controlled Egypt and was also neighbor on the south to the 
Sudan by reason of the Uganda protectorate)^ demanded 
that Great Britain undertake the pacification of the Su- 
dan. Because of the dervish cruelties and misrule the 
native population was rapidly dying out. Last of all, from 
the point of view of European prestige in Africa, the 
Italian defeat at Adowa must be counteracted.^ 

Owing to the stupendous task of establishing and making 
secure lines of communication, which necessitated the con- 
struction of railway and telegraph lines across the Nubian 
Desert, more than two years elapsed between the invasion of 
the Sudan in March, 1896, and the fijial defeat of the Mahdi 
at Omdurman, near Khartum, on September 2, 1898. Gen- 
eral Kitchener was raised to the peerage and became a na- 
tional hero. The victory over the Mahdi, won in a battle 
in which forty thousand dervishes were crushed at the 
cost of less than five hundred killed in the Anglo-Egyptian 

^ Working through missionaries and their converts, the French and British 
governments made claims and counter-claims to Uganda for many years after 
the country was first opened up. In 1890 the German government acknowl- 
edged the territory as British, though the French continued to oppose British 
pretensions. In 1894 Uganda (until then called the kingdom of Buganda) 
was declared a British protectorate. But not until the reconquest of the Sudan 
was completed and the French were checked at Fashoda was France willing to 
recognize that the hope of adding these territories to her African empire was 
definitely dispelled. 

» See Chapter XIX. 



174 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

army, captured the imagination of the public. The British 
began to believe that they were the people of destiny chosen 
'Ko carry the ''white man's burden." 

The intensity of this sentiment was evidenced a few 
weeks later when Kitchener arrived at Fashoda, six hun- 
dred miles south of Khartum on the "White Nile, and 
hoisted the British flag beside the French flag, which had 
been planted there by Captain Marchand on July 10. The 
British refused to recognize the right of prior occupation, 
and the French had to choose between war and ^vithdrawal. 
As France could get no help from Russia,^ the Marchand 
expedition evacuated Fashoda in December, 1898, despite 
the opposition of a large section of the French press, which 
clamored for war. The Fashoda incident, bitter humilia- 
tion as it was for France, had the wholesome effect of mak- 
ing French statesmen see that it might be possible as well 
as wise to arrive at an understanding mth Great Britain 
over moot colonial questions. A precedent had been estab- 
lished in the settlement of the Siamese and Nigerian boun- 
dary disputes. The dehmitation of zones in the Sudan, in 
March, 1899, was a step towards the arrangement concluded 
five years later by which Great Britain and France gave 
each other a free hand respectively in Egj^Dt and Morocco. 
The two nations were able to make successive diplomatic 
compromises because each had something that the other 
wanted with which to bargain. Germany, on the other hand, 
when her imperialism came into conflict with the imperi- 
alism of Great Britain and France, was invariably in the 
position of a claimant, not of a bargainer. 

The reconquest of the Sudan brought under British con- 

* The Franco-Kussian alliance did not bind Russia to support France in a 
war arising from colonial questions, and fought outside Europe. The motives 
that led Russia to ally herself to France were frankly confessed: Russia was 
interested in the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe (see p. 124) ; 
and she was glad to have access to the French market for loans under favorable 
auspices. So clearly understood was the exclusion of extra-European wars 
from the field of the alliance that France's neutrality in the Russo-Japanese 
war, six years after Fashoda, was never questioned. 



EEVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 175 

trol the head-waters of the Nile and an important part of 
the littoral of the Red Sea. Great Britain became a neigh- 
bor of Abyssinia on the west as well as on the south and 
northeast. France's dream of controlling a belt of Africa 
straight across the continent from Senegal on the Atlantic 
to Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden was destroyed, while Great 
Britain's dream of a similar band from north to south — 
the Cape-to-Cairo ''all red route" — was immeasurably ad- 
vanced. The most important result of the exploit of Kitch- 
ener, however, was the change in the attitude of the British 
government towards its position in Egypt, which naturally 
followed the occupation of nearly a million square miles of 
Africa south of Egypt and the source of Egypt's water 
supply. A convention was signed at Cairo on January 19, 
1899, between the British and Egyptian governments, pro- 
viding for joint administration of the Sudan. Who should 
have title over the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in case Great 
Britain evacuated Egypt, was not mentioned.^ 

The revival of British imperialism once more brought to 
the foreground the south African as well as the Sudanese 
question. The policy of Gladstone in abandoning the Su- 
dan was reversed when the reconquest of the Sudan was 
decided upon. Similarly, the solution adopted by Glad- 
stone in adjusting the relations of the British Empire with 
the Boers, i. e., rescinding the Transvaal annexation proc- 
lamation of 1877 and recognizing the independence of the 
Transvaal in 1881, was not considered definitive, especially 
in view of the facts that since Gladstone 's time the British 
had begun to develop the vast resources of south central 
Africa and that gold had become an important product of 
the Transvaal. Bechuanaland, to the west of the Trans- 
vaal, had been made a protectorate in 1891, and Matabele- 

^ This thorny question has always been a source of difficulty in Anglo- 
•^Syptian relations, especially when it came to the point of discussing the 
terms on which Egypt should be given her freedom. The rights of Egypt in 
the Sudan were not defined by the report of the Milner commission in 1921, 
nor by the confirmation of the British government in February, 1922, by which 
the Egyptian Free State was created. 



176 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

land, to the north, in 1894. The value of the regions north 
of the Transvaal (now kno^vn as Ehodesia) was becoming 
apparent. Only the two Boer republics, the Transvaal and 
the Orange Free State, stood in the way of the development 
and consolidation of British power. 

On the last day of December, 1895, Doctor Jameson, ad- 
ministrator of Matabeleland, made a raid upon the Trans- 
vaal in order to compel President Kriiger to yield to the 
demands of foreigners resident in the Transvaal. An up- 
rising at Johannesburg had been planned mth the conniv- 
ance of Premier Ehodes of Cape Colony. The raid failed, 
Jameson and his companions were handed over to the 
British government hj President Kriiger for trial, and 
Rhodes was forced to resign. But the punishment meted 
out to the raiders for the breach of international good faith 
was very slight, and Jameson and Rhodes were regarded 
by British pubhc opinion as not having been guilty of a dis- 
honorable act. On the contrary, the Jameson raid reopened 
the question of the independence of the Boer republics. 
Had they the right to block the path of progress? 

Like every other quarrel, there were faults on both sides, 
and the aggressors made out a good case against their vic- 
tims. But while war was brewing, and during the three 
years that it lasted, many Enghshmen denounced the policy 
of their government and the brutal methods of making war 
that the British were compelled to adopt in order to break 
down the protracted resistance of their enemies. The 
Anglo-Boer War began in 1899, and soon proved to be a 
formidable military task, involving an effort far beyond 
the calculations of the statesmen and generals who decided 
that the Boers had to be coerced. The Boer element in 
Cape Colony sympathized wdth the burghers of the re- 
publics, and the first English armies sent against President 
Kriiger mot with disaster. Even after two years of fight- 
ing, when the Boers were overwhelmed by numbers and 
had come virtually to the end of their resources, they kept 



REVIVAL OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM (1895-1902) 177 

up a guerrilla warfare that proved expensive to the Brit- 
ish. On August 7, 1901, Lord Kitchener issued a drastic 
proclamation announcing the annexation of the Orange 
Free State and the "late South African Eepublic," and 
declared that he was "determined to put an end to a state 
of things which aimlessly prolonged bloodshed and destruc- 
tion and inflicted ruin upon the great majority of the in- 
habitants, anxious to live in peace and to earn a livelihood 
for themselves and their families." 

Ten thousand Boers were holding in check a British army 
of more than two hundred thousand. Kitchener was com- 
pelled to establish concentration camps, in which there was 
a frightful mortality of women and children, and to extend 
the area of "pacified" territory by means of a chain of 
blockhouses. Only by this means could the Boers be 
brought to surrender. It took almost a year, however, of 
Systematic starving and smoking out before the burghers, 
facing annihilation, surrendered unconditionally. In May, 
1902, the Boers agreed to the treaty of Vereeniging, by 
which the Transvaal and the Orange Free State burghers 
recognized Edward VII as their lawful sovereign and sur- 
rendered their independence, with the guaranty that they 
should be allowed to retain the use of their language and 
not be subjected to any special tax to defray the expenses 
of the war. 

The Boer War aroused bad feeling against Great Britain, 
especially in Holland and France. But the wisdom and 
magnanimity of the conquerors soon convinced the world 
that the British intended to treat the Boers fairly and to 
give them equal rights with themselves in south Africa. 
This generous policy made possible the rapid healing of 
war wounds and the accomplishment of the object for which 
the war had been fought — the consolidation of south Africa 
as a white man's land under the British crown. 



/ 



CHAPTER XIV 

PERSIA AND THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGEEEMENT OF 1907 

RUSSIAN penetration southward on both sides of the 
Caspian Sea was at the expense of Persia. The 
provinces of Transcaucasia, containing the world's richest 
oil-fields, were taken from that country in war. Most of the 
Transcaspian Province, especially the part of it across 
which runs the railway from the Caspian Sea to central 
Asia, was similarly wrested from her. Persia is one of the 
highways to the open sea of Russian dreams. It was nat- 
ural that Russian imperialism, when other outlets were 
temporarily or permanently blocked, should try to travel 
by the Persian road. 

Because Persia lay on one of the routes to India, Great 
Britain, on the other hand, regarded this country as mthin 
her sphere of influence. We have seen how, in 1854 and 
1878, the British prevented the Russians from reaching the 
Mediterranean through Turkey. The same general policy 
of being ready for war to check Russian expansion south- 
ward was followed also in Persia and Afghanistan. Great 
Britain fought two wars for the control of Afghanistan, and 
by naval activity that was never relaxed at any time in the 
nineteenth century she brought and kept the Persian Gulf 
under her influence. Turkey and France experienced the 
veto of England on the littoral of the gulf and of the adja- 
cent Arabian peninsula. When Russia began to build rail- 
ways to the frontiers of Persia and Afghanistan, Persia 
became the principal field in which Great Britain and Rus- 
sia opposed each other's ambition to dominate Asia, ^^he 
twentieth century opened with Teheran as the center of 
Bfitisli and Russian diplomatic intrigue. 



PERSIA AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1907 179 

Between 1872 and 1890 twelve railway promotion groups 
received concessions from the Persian government. The 
Eeuter group started to construct a line from the Caspian 
Sea to the Persian Gulf. A French project to connect 
Tabriz with Trebizond on the Black Sea was underwritten 
by Paris bankers. But in 1890 Russia, simply to frustrate 
the plans of the British and the French, secured from the 
Persian government the exclusive right for twenty-one 
years to build railways in northern Persia. Russia did not 
even survey railway routes. She did nothing herself, and 
prevented others from giving Persia the indispensable fac- 
tor of economic progress that virtually every country in 
Asia was developing through European capital. Invoking 
the excuse of Persia's backwardness and administrative an- 
archy, for which Russian diplomacy was largely respon- 
sible, Russia attempted to bring the country definitely 
within her sphere of influence. 

Since the Persians were powerless, Russia would have 
succeeded had she not made the mistake of trying to extend 
her political and commercial influence to the Persian Gulf 
and Afghanistan, which the British considered exclusively 
theirs. In 1900 the Transcaspian Railway completed its 
branch from Merv to the Afghan frontier, and Russian 
emissaries and traders began active penetration of Afghan- 
istan. In 1901 Russian diplomacy interfered in the British 
intrigue to detach Koweit from Turkish suzerainty and, 
when this failed, challenged Great Britain's claim to su- 
premacy in the Persian Gulf. A steamship line from Odessa 
to Persian Gulf ports was estabhshed in February, 1901; 
Russian war-ships cruised in the gulf ; and Russian agents 
purchased land in the islands and at Bender-Abbas. As 
Great Britain's title to close the Persian Gulf had no foun- 
dation in treaties or international law, Russia had to be 
stopped indirectly. I n 190 2 Great Britain made an alliance 
with Japan, who was preparing to attack Russia. 

But the defeat of Russia in the Far East led only to the 



A 



180 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

redoubling of efforts to open a way to the sea through 
Persia. Despite British protests and threats, a Eussian 
consulate was established at Bender-Abbas. The Russian 
Loan Bank secured the veto power over future foreign 
loans for seventy-five years, and the Persian government 
began to pay back the Anglo-Persian loan of 1892 with 
money borrowed from Russia. Neither of the powers was 
able to oust the other. But each was able to prevent the 
other from developing concessions or follomng up advan- 
tages. And as both powers refused to allow Persia to 
seek money elsewhere, railways remained unbuilt and the 
country fell into anarchy. 

A British conmiercial mission sent to study conditions 
in 1906 recommended the division of the country into 
spheres of influence. It was obvious to business men in 
England and India that the intrigues and counter-intrigues 
of legations and consulates were ruining the hopes of get- 
ting financial benefit from trade privileges and concessions. 
Germany, too, by building the Bagdad Railway and threat- 
ening to invade the financial and commercial field, made* 
British merchants feel that a three-cornered fight would 
be less profitable than dividing with Russia and keeping 
Germany out. Anglo-French relations had changed, and 
Russia was the ally of France. Russian officialdom was 
more tractable than before the events of 1904-05. Great 
Britain and Russia got together as Great Britain and 
France had done. 

On September 24, 1907, the Anglo-Russian convention 
was communicated to the ambassadors of the powers in 
Petrograd. In the preamble the signatories affirmed their 
intention to maintain the independence and integrity of 
Persia and to allow (this is the word in the text) equal 
facilities for trade to all nations. But the convention went 
on to say that, owing to the proximity of Persia to their 
own territories,-jG^eat Britain and Russia had ''special in- 
terests." The first article defined the Russian zone, the 



PERSIA AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1907 181 

second the British zone, the third a neutral zone ; the fourth 
confirmed the existing mortgages of Persian revenues, and 
the fifth established the mutual privilege, "in event of ir- 
regularities," of instituting control over the revenues in 
the respective zones. A letter from Sir Edward Grey to 
the British ambassador at Petrograd, published simultane- 
ously with the convention, announced that the Persian 
Gulf lay outside the scope of the understanding, but that 
the Russian government had agreed during the negotia- 
/ tions ''not to deny the special interests of Great Britain in 
(the gulf." 

Great Britain and Russia established a new internal and 
international status for Persia without considering the in- 
terests or consulting the wishes of the Persians. And, as 
in the case of the series of agreements from 1890 to 1904 
between Great Britain and France, the other powers were 
notified after the event. In 1890 the two Occidental powers 
gave each other carte hlanche in Zanzibar and Madagascar, 
and in 1904 in Egypt and Morocco. There was no agree- 
" ment among the powers beforehand, and the people and the 
rulers most vitally concerned were not notified. In virtu- 
ally every instance of conventions to settle colonial rival- 
ries, the compromises, which profoundly affected the des- 
tinies of Asiatics and Africans, were made for the mutual 
advantage of the ''high contracting parties" and to the 
detriment of the countries whose political and economic 
status was changed.^ 

The Anglo-Russian convention was conceived and put 
into force at a time when Asia was undergoing experiences 
similar to those that Europe experienced in 1848. After the 
Russo-Japanese War a wave of national feeling swept over 
Asia, and in every country there was a movement to estab- 

^If one believes in the Vbermensch theory he will challenge this statement. 

If there are two moralities, one for Europe and America and the other for the 

rest of the world, it may be argued that Asiatic and African peoples receive 

. . ample compensation for being, deprived of political and economic independence 

I* I in the benefits they get from material and moral contact with our superior 

1 civilization. 



182 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

lish democratic institutions and throw off foreign control. 
The two aims went together. Xenophobia has always been 
a phenomenon of agitation for self-government, and from 
Rmmymede to the Italian Risorgimento the rallying cry 
has been the same: ''Out with the foreigners!" Civil war 
is another phenomenon of democratic evolution. Russia 
and Great Britain played one Persian party against an- 
other, and seized the opportunity offered by the constitu- 
tional movement to occupy with armies the zones they had 
allotted to themselves. 

Having thus installed themselves in their zones, the two 
powers sent a joint note to the Persian government, de- 
claring that they would refuse to sanction loans from other 
powers if these loans involved the granting of concessions 
\/ to any other powers or their subjects "contrary to Russian 
or British political and strategic interests." Persia re- 
fused to accept this, or indeed to recognize the Russo- 
British protectorate in any way; whereupon Petrograd 
and London warned the other powers and international 
financial circles against lending money to or seeking con- 
cessions from Persia. 

In answer to British complaints that order was not be- 
ing preserved along the trade routes of southern Persia, 
the Persian government said that money was necessary to 
reorganize and maintain the gendarmerie. The British and 
Russian governments not only refused to lend the money, 
but kept in their own hands the revenues accruing in the 
zones occupied by them — the richest parts of Persia, in- 
cluding all the customs — and prevented Persia from raising 
a loan at Paris or Berlin. ! ^ersia w as rendere.d^powerless 
.'lo take m.easures to restore peaceful conditions. This gave 
tlie^Russians a pretext to send more troops into northern 
Persia; while the British informed the P'ersian govern- 
ment that the state of anarchy in the south necessitated 
British intervention to police the trade route from Bushire 
to Shiraz and Ispahan. 



PERSIA AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1907 183 

Left to herself, Persia made an eifort to strengthen the 
central administrations. Frenchmen were employed in the 
ministry of justice and of the interior. Swedish officers 
were engaged to reorganize the gendarmerie. To free the 
^nances from European.political intrigue, Persia turned to 
the United States. Our government was willing to suggest 
names of experts, but not to give diplomatic backing to any 
mission that might be chosen. It was indicated to Persia 
that Americans who went to Teheran, although they had 
virtually been nominated by our State Department, were 
to be private citizens on a mission that did not involve the 
Washington government. 

Mr. W. Morgan Shuster, a former government official in 
the Philippines, was intrusted with the task of managing 
Persian finances. Considering that he was in the service 
of an independent state to work for the interests of that 
state, Mr. Shuster did not recognize the Anglo-Russian 
convention.^ The Russians, therefore, demanded his dis- 
missal, under threat of occupying Teheran. Sir Edward 
Grey explained to the House of Commons that the interests 
of Great Britain dictated the support of the Russian ulti- 
matum. "When a member asked, ' ' How about the interests 
of Persia?" Sir Edward was silent. The Persian parlia- 
ment rejected the ultimatum, but, under pressure from 
the Russian and British ministers, it was prorogued, and 
the American mission had to leave. 

, The Anglo-Russian expulsion, of Mr. Shuster, on Decem- 
ber 24, 1911, ended for nine years the independence of 
, P(Mma. Money now had to be borrowed from Russia and 
Great Britain, from whom it had to be begged in small 
sums at high interest. Banking operations were exclusively 
in the hands of Russian and British banks, in which 
customs receipts had to be deposited. Although her nat- 

* There were, of course, several specific acts on the part of Mr. Shuster that 
offended Eussia and demonstrated the American expert's intention to disre- 
gard the Anglo -Eussian convention. The story is told in Mr. Shuster 's book, 
"The Strangling of Persia." 



184 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ural wealth was great and her public debt small, Persia was 
reduced to a state of financial slavery. The two ''protect- 
ing powers," furthermore, defeated every project of finan- 
cial, military, and economic refoiTQ. From 1900 to 1914 
the railway mileage of Asia was quadrupled, and the con- 
sequent marvelous increase in economic prosperity was 
shared by eveiy country except Persia, where no railways 
were built. Eyery effort made by Persians along the lines 
other countries were following^ — extension of popular edu- 
cation, improvement and consolidation of fiscal systems, 
(working out and testing of democratic institutions — was op- 
posed and defeated by the country 's masters, with the tacit 
consent of the other powers. 

The importance of the Anglo-Russian convention is two- 
fold. Germany fomid herself shut out from another field 
of expansion, and was stimulated to fresh effort to extend 
her influence in Turkey. Iii_P.ersia, after fifty years of 
bitter struggle, Great Britain and Russia were able to bury 
their animosity and to compromise their confhcting in- 
terests throughout the world. The cooperation of British 
democracy and Russian autocracy in a war against Ger- 
many was made possible. For Great Britain was relieved 
qi anxiety concerning India, and Russian statesmen were, 
iiTreturii, encouraged to begin the diplomatic negotiations 
Jj/^TharresuTted in the abandonment by Great Britain of oppo- 
|l j sition to the eventual Russian annexation of Constantinople 
" 'and the Straits. The Anglo-Russian agreement was a 
necessary corollary to the Anglo-French agreement in lay- 
ing the bases of the Triple Entente. 



CHAPTER XV 

EGYPT, MOEOCCO, AND THE ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT 

OF 1904 

ALTHOUGH British and French had fought side by 
side against Eussia in the Crimean War, forty years 
after Waterloo, during the reign of Napoleon III, there 
was in England little love for France. For the Second 
Empire prospered. Especially in the Near East, the two 
Occidental powers were commercial rivals, and France was 
accumulating too much surplus capital for investment 
abroad to avoid the adoption by her government of a for- 
eign policy that frequently seemed aggressive in the eyes 
of the British Foreign Office. Hence it was not surprising 
that public opinion in England was sympathetic with Prus- 
sia and her allies in the war of 1870, and that the defeat of 
France and the incorporation of Alsace-Lorraine in the 
new German Empire were hailed by the British with quiet 
satisfaction. Queen Victoria's ministers and the interna- 
tional traders and bankers of London were only human in 
rejoicing in the setback to French political and financial 
prestige throughout the world. 

During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, 
which were the first generation of the Third Republic, con- 
stant friction disturbed the relations between London and 
Paris, due to the fact that French statesmen and bankers 
were seeking in Africa and Asia opportunities for invest- 
ment and compensation for the prestige that had been lost 
in Europe. We have seen how France went to China, Mada- 
gascar, the Pacific islands, and northern and western Africa 
to develop titles that (with the exception of Algeria) were 
scarcely more than footholds, but that offered opportuni- 

185 



186 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ties to expand into contiguous territories. These colonial 
activities brought France into diplomatic conflicts with 
Great Britain in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Moreover, 
France allied herself with Russia, Great Britain's other 
colonial rival. Germany, on the other hand, was not during 
these decades in a position to contest the expansion of the 
British Empire, as were France and Russia, and, although 
a Weltpolitik had been launched, it had little support from 
the German people and so was not a menace to the British. 

The theory advanced during the recent World War, that 
peoples understand each other, form alliances, and fight 
side by side because they have common ideals and are in- 
spired by a common desire to defend civilization, is difficult 
to uphold in the light of history, even of the most recent 
history. The facts of Anglo-French relations prove that 
the Entente Cordiale is the result of a realization of com- 
mon interests, which came when the statesmen of the two 
nations concluded that the prosperity and increasing power 
of Germany were more to be feared by both Great Britain 
and France than the prosperity and power of each were to 
be feared by the other. 

In the New Hebrides,^ in the extension of the frontiers 
of Burma and Indo-China,- in Egypt,^ in Morocco, in 
Arabia,"* in the conquest of Madagascar by the French ^ 
and of the eastern Sudan by the British,^ differences of 
opinion had more than once brought the two nations to the 
verge of war. The most serious questions, because they 
were the most vital, were those of Morocco and Eg}T)t. It 
was logical, therefore, that the agreement that sealed the 
Entente Cordiale should be based upon a sweeping compro- 
mise regarding Egj^pt and Morocco — a compromise of a 
nature to assure public opinion in both countries that there 
was a genuine quid pro quo. 



» See page 63. » See pp. 61-62, 168. » See p. 92. * See p. 75. 'Seep. 
"See p. 174. 



59. 



THE ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT OF 1904 187 

From the days of Mehemet Ali, France regarded Egypt 
as a country in which French culture and French invest- 
ments were to predominate. Despite the veto of the Brit- 
ish government and London bankers, a French company 
secured a concession for the Suez Canal, and financed and 
carried through the project. Six years after the canal 
was opened the British government became the controlling 
stockholder. When the Egyptian treasury fell behind in 
interest payments on the national debt, France and Great 
Britain established a joint financial control. But Great 
Britain alone occupied Egypt and took over the administra- 
tion of the country. The original occupation could not have 
been considered trickery or unfairness to France ; for Lon- 
don had invited Paris to take part, first, in bombarding 
Alexandria, and, second, in landing troops. What rankled 
in the minds of the French was the continued occupation of 
Egypt, carrying with it sole British administrative control. 
British statesmen had assured France and the other powers 
that the occupation was to be temporary and would not 
infringe upon the rights and privileges of the sultan of 
Turkey, of the European powers, and of the Egyptian gov- 
ernment.* 

Time did not reconcile the French to the fait accompli 
of the British occupation. The loss of Egypt (for it was so 
regarded) came up frequently in the Chamber of Deputies, 
and the statesmen who had allowed Great Britain to act 
alone and those who had not brought pressure to bear later 
to oust the British found the Egyptian question a vulner- 
able place in their political armor. Among the French 
people it was felt that British control of the canal and the 
seizure of Egypt were the result of France's weakness 
after the war of 1870, of which the British had taken unfair 
advantage. 

Nominally Egypt was an autonomous vilayet (province) 

*For a discussion of Great Britain's pledges see pp. 91-92, 505-507. 



188 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a khedive (viceroy). The 
relations between Egj^Dt and other nations had been estab- 
lished by treaties mth Turkey. Europeans and Americans 
enjoyed the privileges of a capitulatory regime, as in Tur- 
key. Their interests were looked after by consuls-general 
in Cairo, exercising diplomatic functions, and by consuls 
and consular agents in other cities. Justice was adminis- 
tered by consular courts and mixed tribunals of European 
and Egyptian judges. The Egyptian debt was under in- 
ternational control, and representatives of the powers 
supervised the expenditure of revenues affected to pay the 
interest on the debt. 

The government of the khedive was carried on by a min- 
istry, with a premier, as in European states; but, as in 
Oriental states, the khedive kept legislative authority in 
his own hands. His national council and national assembly 
were advisory bodies, possessing only such authority as 
he was willing for them to have. 

Practically, Egypt was quit of Turkish control vnth. the 
paATiient of a tribute and the flying of the Turkish flag. 
After the British occupation the ruler of the country be- 
came the British consul-general, who governed through ad- 
visers in the different ministries. For the sake of form, 
the diplomatic agents of other countries looked upon the 
khedive as ruler of Egypt, and carried on negotiations with 
the khedive 's ministry. In fact, all matters were decided 
at the British agency. The khedive was a figure-head and 
his ministers were figure-heads. The final authority was 
the British cabinet, to whom the consul-general made an an- 
nual report. Great Britain's position in Egypt was main- 
tained by a garrison in the Cairo citadel, and by control of 
the Eg}q3tian army through British officers, who held the 
principal commands. 

This situation was possible only through the impotence 
of Turkey, the acquiescence of the powers, and the will- 
ingness of the British to five under the outward semblance 



THE ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT OF 1904 189 

of Egyptian authority.* To remain in Egypt, it was neces- 
sary for the British to keep Turkey and the powers from 
interfering and to prevent a movement on the part of the 
khedive and the educated Egyptians to take back into their 
own hands the control of the country. 

Towards the end of the nineteenth century educated 
Egyptians began to conspire against the British occupation. 
British rule had brought prosperity and tranquillity; but 
there were no evidences of carrying out the promises to 
leave Egypt. On the contrary, the reconquest of the Sudan 
seemed to indicate that the British intended to make Egypt 
a colony or a protectorate. Khedive Abbas Hilmi, who had 
succeeded to the throne in 1892, sympathized with the na- 
tionalists, and declared that material blessings, however 
great, could not compensate any people for the loss of the 
privilege of managing their own affairs. One can hardly 
blame him for not appreciating his benefits as much as his 
benefactors did, especially as it was constantly in his mind 
that, although they were doing well by Egypt, they were 
inspired, not by love for Egypt, but by the fact that 
their country had decided that it was to her own interest 
to remain in Egypt in order to keep control of the Suez 
Canal. 

Abbas Hilmi was too completely at the mercy of Lord 
Cromer, the British consul-general, who could have de- 
posed him in a minute, to side openly "with the nationalist 
movement; and the agitators were not a serious menace 
until they began to receive outside encouragement and 
financial aid. Mustafa Kamel, leader of the nationalist 
movement, imbibed his democratic notions, and conceived 
the idea of a free Egypt, in Paris, where influential French- 
men saw in him the best sort of firebrand to throw into 

* The British military and civilian officials in Egyptian government service 
wore the fez and styled themselves * ' servants of the khedive. ' ' The ruler 
was given the same symbols of respect that other sovereigns enjoyed, and the 
British applied to the court chamberlain for "an audience of his Highness," 
and, when they received it, courtesied to the khedive as they would to their 
own king. 



190 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Egypt in revenge for the attitude of Cromer and Kitch- 
ener at Fashoda.^ Although intellectually hmited, Mustafa 
Kamel had enthusiasm, magnetism, and the gift of public 
speaking — qualities that the demagogue must have. He 
could be inspired and directed by French journalists work- 
ing discreetly behind the scenes. 

At the end of 1899 Mustafa Kamel returned to Cairo 
from Paris, and gathered around him a group of influential 
and thoughtful people whom he could never have attracted 
if French intrigue had not been at work. Mustafa Kamel 
was the showy fagade of the movement. But the British 
knew that behind him stood a new group of whom he was 
not the leader. They knew also that French brains and 
money were responsible for the foundation of the Arabic 
newspaper Lewa, which within a year became the most 
widely circulated journal in Egypt. The nationalist 
movement organized a propaganda, through the local 
Moslem clergy and the Lewa, which reached the fellahin 
(peasants). 

Mustafa Kamel and his associates thought that giving 
their propaganda a rehgious character was essential to its 
success; but in doing this they brought about its failure. 
Indeed, the nationalist movement, originally launched by 
the French to make trouble for the British, actually pre- 
pared the way for the Anglo-French understanding. Mus- 
tafa Kamel's speeches and writings in Egypt and the Young 
Egyptian congresses in Switzerland caused alarm among 
far-seeing French statesmen, who saw in pan-Islamism 
menace to their own colonial interests. From the mo- 
ment of its birth the Egyptian nationalist movement was 
a boomerang to the French. Launched to hit the British in 
Eg^qDt, it bid fair to hit every European power that held 
Mohammedans in subjection, but especially the French 
themselves in north and west Africa. The most bitter 
Anglophobes began to feel the necessity of a colonial agree- 

' See p. 174. 



THE ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT OF 1904 191 

ment with Great Britain. Through the nationalist move- 
ment, however, they had proved what mischief they were 
capable of causing, and made British statesmen feel that 
it would be worth while to make concessions to France 
elsewhere in order to call off the efforts to undermine Great 
Britain 's position in Egypt. 

The part of Africa nearest Europe and America, and 
adjoining the highly developed colony of Algeria, was, at 
the opening of the twentieth century, the most backward, the 
most unknown, the most inaccessible. On account of 
the rivalry of the powers, Morocco had remained outside 
all European spheres of influence. The powers most in- 
terested in whatever changes were to be made in the politi- 
cal status of this Moorish corner of Africa were, because 
of propinquity, France and Spain. The ambition of France 
was to round out her north African empire by extending 
her protectorate over Morocco, as she had done over 
Tunisia two decades earlier. Spain, whose foothold on the 
Moroccan coast dated back to the sixteenth century, had 
never succeeded in extending her influence over the 
hinterland, and did not possess the strength either to in- 
timidate the Moors herself or to help them resist French 
pressure. 

Germany and Great Britain worked together to block 
the French. Both powers were influenced by trade consid- 
erations, and Great Britain, in addition, did not hke the 
idea of French control over territories opposite Gibraltar. 
The British were more vigorous than the Germans in their 
determination to prevent France from repeating what she 
had done in Tunisia. The British contended that the inde- 
pendence of the shereefian empire must be upheld at all 
costs. What Emperor William said at Tangier in 1905, 
and what the German press wrote during the crises of Al- 
geciras and Agadir,^ is substantially what has been said in 
more than one speech from the throne of Queen Victoria 

»See Chapter XVIL 



192 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and what the British press wrote up to the time of the 
bargain with France. 

During the five years preceding the agreement of 1904 
France, thwarted at Fashoda and converted to the neces- 
sity of a constructive and logical African program, began 
an effort to secure the Moroccan "key to her house." The 
German legation was a very poor second to the British 
legation in opposing French attempts to gain control of 
the Moroccan army, to obtain harbor and mining conces- 
sions, and to secure a rectification of Algerian frontiers. 
The French began to realize that, while they might suc- 
cessfully combat German intrigue, there was no hope of 
doing anything in Morocco without the consent of the 
British. France had a sincere desire and a very good rea- 
son for wishing to see peace and order and economic pros- 
perity brought to Morocco. But the Anglo-German poUcy 
paralyzed every effort of Moroccan and French authorities 
to improve political and economic conditions in the north- 
western corner of Africa. The British minister, ad\ising 
the sultan of Morocco as a friend Avhose interests he had at 
heart, urged him to resist French advances and combat 
French influences. Immediately after the agreement of 
1904 ^vas signed, he told the sultan that he must do what the 
French said. The British minister at Teheran acted in 
the same way "vvith the Persians in regard to Russia before 
and after the agreement of 1907. 

The three documents embodying the agreement between 
Great Britain and France, in which Egypt and Morocco \vere 
the principal pawns, were published in Paris on April 8. 
France recognized Great Britain's predominant posi- 
tion in Egypt and promised not to raise again the question 
of the temporary character of the British occupation. In 
return, Great Britain recognized the special interests of 
France in Morocco and promised to place no obstacles in 
the waj^ of French inten^ention to maintain order and assist 
the sultan in reforms. France agreed to treat British 






THE ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT OF 1904 193 

commerce in Morocco on equality with French for thirty 
years and not to annex or erect fortifications in the neigh- 
borhood of the Straits of Gibraltar and to prevent any 
other power from doing so. 

The secondary adjustments or compromises were: (1) 
France abandoned the right of landing and drying fish on 
the shore of Newfoundland, granted by the treaty of 
Utrecht in 1714, in return for the cession of territory at 
the mouth of the Gambia Eiver and of the Los Islands in 
west Africa and the rectification of the frontier in Algeria 
which would give France a direct route to Lake Chad with- 
out passing through the desert; (2) while disclaiming any 
intention of annexing Siamese territory, French influence 
was recognized as predominant in the valley of the Me- 
kong and British in the valley of the Menam; (3) Great 
Britain abandoned her protests against French tariffs in 
Madagascar; (4) a joint commission was to be created 
for administering the New Hebrides Islands. 

The agreement contained five secret articles, not made 
public until 1911, and then only because there was a wide- 
spread suspicion in England that they committed Great 
Britain to a defensive alliance with France. But these ar- 
ticles provided only for judicial and financial questions and 
for contingencies that might arise in connection with 
Spain's hold on the coast opposite Gibraltar. 

Germany felt that, as Great Britain and France did not 
own Egypt and Morocco, it was impossible to admit the 
right of British and French statesmen thus to dispose of 
these important countries, protecting themselves at the 
expense of other powers as well as of the peoples whose 
destinies they were arranging without consulting them. 
The agreement of 1904 brought Great Britain and France 
together, and in the end made them allies against Germany. 
For, as far as Morocco was concerned, Germany refused 
to admit that the agreement possessed international 
validity. 



194 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Germany attempted to prevent France from occupy- 
ing Morocco. Great Britain sided with France. Public 
opinion was aroused, in France and Great Britain against 
Germany, and in Germany against Great Britain and 
France, over a question that in reality affected, even in- 
directly, only a small number of their respective subjects. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GEEMAN WELTPOLITIK 

(1883-1905) 

ON the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of 
the German Empire, Kaiser Wilhehn II said : * ' May 
our German Fatherland become one day so powerful that, 
as one formerly used to say, Civis romanus sum, one may 
in the future say only, Ich bin ein deutscher Burger." 
This statement revealed a lack of appreciation of the 
difference between the Roman and the nineteenth-century 
European ideas of citizenship. The apostle Paul had no 
Latin blood in his veins, had never been to Rome,^ and 
what non-Jewish culture he had imbibed was Greek and not 
Latin. Roman citizenship was a patent, like a title of no- 
bility, conferred upon people throughout the empire for 
services rendered or as a matter of policy. The Roman 
Empire was a system of government, based upon the idea 
of a dominant caste, not of a dominant race. The accident 
of being born of certain blood and in a certain place did 
not of itself entail exclusive rights and privileges and op- 
portunities of exploiting the inhabitants of other countries. 
Throughout the centuries of overseas expansion the 
European nations followed exploration with missionary 
propaganda and conquest. It was natural that peoples 
who found themselves, by reason of military strength, 
knowledge, and financial resources, enabled to impose their 
will upon weaker nations should begin to believe in the 
superiority of their blood and civilization. But gradually 
the European nations came into conflict with one another 
outside Europe, and fell to using non-Europeans and non- 

^At the time Paul invoked his citizenship as a protection (ef. Acts xxii: 
25-29). It was undoubtedly this incident that the kaiser had in mind. 

195 



196 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Christians against each other. These practices, which were 
in reality the original challenge to the pretension of Europe 
to the right of eminent domain in the other continents and 
which gave non-Christians a right to question the sincerity 
of missionary propaganda, had already been adopted in 
the colonial wars of the eighteenth century. Therefore, in 
the struggles that succeeded the French Revolution, the new 
conception of nationality bred among the rival peoples of 
Europe the tendency to adopt the TJ ehermenscli theory in 
their relations with one another. In the next generation 
universal military service and the glittering reward of 
great economic prosperity involved whole peoples in the 
bitterness of international rivalry, and they succumbed to 
the temptation of seeking by force the aggrandizement of 
their particular nations throughout the world. 

When Wilhelm II ascended the throne modem political 
GeiTnany was in her eighteenth year and her first colonies 
were in their fifth year. The Weltpolitik (world policy) of 
Germany was largely a development of the thirty years of 
his reign. The kaiser was the product of the era in which 
he ruled. Noisily aggressive as it was, we must judge 
his leadership in the light of the situation in which Ger- 
many found herself. 

After the successful war of 1870, united Germany entered 
upon the greatest era of industrial growth and prosperity 
that has ever been enjoyed by any nation. Not even the 
United States, with the help of emigration and of new 
territories to open up, could boast of a development in pro- 
ductive activities and means of communication comparable 
to that of Germany. In old central Europe cities sprang up 
almost overnight ; railways and canals were built until the 
empire became a network of steel and of inland waterways ; 
mines and factories sprang into being; the population in- 
creased more than fifty per cent, in forty years. Germany 
began to look to the extra-European world for markets. 
She was reaching the point where her productivity exceeded 



GERMAN WELTPOLITIK (1883-1905) 197 

her power of consumption. Where could she find mar- 
kets for the goods? German merchants, and not Prussian 
mihtarists, began to spread abroad the idea that there was 
a world equihbrium, as important to the future of the na- 
tions of Europe as was the European equihbrium. Ger- 
many, becoming a competitor, saw that the prosperity of 
Great Britain was due to trade, and that the security and 
volume of this trade depended upon colonies. 

The first instance of the awakening on the part of the 
German people to a sense that there was something that 
interested them outside of Europe was the annexation by 
Great Britain in 1874 of the Fiji Islands, with which Ger- 
man traders had just begun to build up a business. Be- 
cause the infant empire was engaged in its struggles with 
the church and socialism, and the relations between the 
Reichstag and the Bundesrath were still in an experimental 
stage, Germany was not in a position to adopt a vigorous 
foreign policy or to seek her share of the world by taking 
what Great Britain and Russia and France had not yet 
taken. But the Germans began to feel that in the future 
Germany ought to be consulted concerning the further ex- 
tension of the sovereignty of any European nation over any 
part of the world then unoccupied or still independent of 
foreign control. 

German trade, at the very moment when it was begin- 
ning to seek world markets, was confronted by the British 
occupation of Cyprus in 1878 and of Egypt in 1882, the 
French occupation of Tunisia in 1881, and Russian, French, 
and British dealings with China, Siam, Afghanistan, 
Persia, and the peoples of central Asia. The educated and 
moneyed classes in Germany started an agitation to im- 
press upon the government the necessity of entering the 
colonial field. When Bismarck had successfully concluded 
the critical struggle with the socialists, the decks were 
cleared for action. In 1882 a Bremen trader, by treaties 
with the native chiefs, gained control of the Bay of Angra 



198 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Pequena on the west coast of Africa. For two years no 
attention was paid to this treaty, which was a private com- 
mercial affair. In 1884, shortly after the occupation of 
Egypt, a dispute arose between the British authorities at 
Cape Town and Herr Liideritz, the owner of Angra 
Pequena. Bismarck saw that he must act or the old story 
of British sovereignty would be repeated. He telegraphed 
to the German consul at Cape Town that the imperial gov- 
ernment had annexed the coast and hinterland from the 
Orange River to Cape Frio. 

From 1884 to 1886 other annexations in Africa and the 
Pacific were made. The east coast of Africa, north of 
Cape Delgado and the River Rovuma, and Kamerun and 
Togo, on the Gulf of Guinea, were put under the German 
flag. In the Pacific Kaiser Wilhelm's Land was formed 
of a part of New Guinea, with some adjacent islands, 
and the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, and 
the Marshall Islands were gathered in. Since those early 
years of feverish activity there were no new acquisitions 
in Africa, other than the part of the French Congo ceded 
to Germany in 1912 *'as compensation" for the French 
protectorate over Morocco. In the Pacific, in 1899, after 
the American conquest of the Philippines, the Caroline, 
Pelew, and Marianne groups were added by purchase from 
Spain, and two of the Samoan islands were allotted to 
Germany by an arrangement with Great Britain and the 
United States. 

The four colonies in Africa and the groups of Pacific 
islands were of little intrinsic and of no strategic value. 
The very fact that they had remained A\dthout European 
masters until the eighties of the nineteenth century was 
proof that they were comparatively worthless and that 
none of them contained a harbor capable of being converted 
into a naval base. Even the Pacific islands acquired from 
Spain were left-overs that the United States had not cared 
to take in the treaty following the Cuban War. The Afri- 



GERMAN WELTPOLITIK (1883-1905) 199 

can colonies made Germany a neighbor of Great Britain, 
France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. Until a few years 
before the "World War the Belgian Congo enjoyed an in- 
ternational status, and was controlled by a private com- 
pany under King Leopold and not directly by the Belgian 
government. The parts of the Congo Free State touching 
the German colonies were simply interior jungle-land, of 
which Germany already had more than she could develop. 
The little Spanish colony bordering on Kamerun was of no 
importance. The adjacent French and British colonies in 
west Africa and the British possessions in southwest and 
east Africa offered no possibility of German expansion.^ 
Consequently it was difficult for the young colonial party to 
awaken enthusiasm for overseas possessions that were un- 
attractive for large capital investment, for trade develop- 
ment, or for colonization. Moreover, as occasions for fric- 
tion with other powers did not exist, these colonies afforded 
to ** greater Germany" advocates no opportunity to foster 
a jingo spirit. 

In studying the Weltpolitik it is essential to emphasize 
the fact that the colonies acquired between 1883 and 1888 
were a deterrent rather than a stimulus in creating and 
maintaining a current of public opinion for the support of 
an aggressive foreign policy. Very few Germans took an 
interest in the colonies, which were regarded as an ex- 
pensive luxury ; and in the Keichstag and the press events 
such as the Herero War in southwest Africa were used 
successfully to discredit the colonial ventures of the govern- 
ment.^ Not until after the first Moroccan crisis, when the 

^ Germany 's sole chance for an attractive and interesting colonial develop- 
ment lay in the acquisition of a part or all of Portugal's colonies. The two 
largest of these lay to the north and south respectively of German Southwest 
Africa and German East Africa. For the Anglo-German pourparlers to divide 
the Portuguese colonies, see p. 475. 

'The Herero War, begun in the autumn of 1903, did not end until 1907; 
but the events that aroused the greatest criticism in Germany, and indeed in 
other countries, occurred in 1904, General von Trotha, whose cruelties had 
given rise to sharp debates in the Reichstag, was recalled in 1905, before the 
colonial question became a campaign issue. 



200 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

colonies were more than twenty years old, did the German 
people elect a Reichstag committed to the political support 
and financial development of the colonies. 

The Germans realized that they had to take the world as 
they found it. It was futile to hope to build up a world 
empire by colonizing unoccupied territories in the temperate 
zone. There were none. As for establishing their protec- 
torate over weaker nations, the Americas were excluded by 
the Monroe Doctrine, and Great Britain, Russia, and 
France had anticipated them in the worth-while parts of 
Asia and Africa. China could be further despoiled only 
by acting in concert with the other powers. The Ottoman 
Empire alone offered to a great power the possibility of 
securing predominant influence. Beyond taking a share of 
the loot in China and attempting to get the upper hand in 
what remained of the Ottoman Empire, Germany could 
hope for no more than to keep open doors for her commerce 
by opposing the efforts of other powers to gobble up the 
few African and Asiatic countries that retained a semblance 
of independence. The possibilities for Germany were, 
therefore: (1) getting a foothold in China; (2) becoming 
the predominating power in the Ottoman Empire; and (3) 
thwarting French ambitions in Morocco and British and 
Russian ambitions in Persia. The other phases of the 
Weltpolitik were: (1) to find a means by which Germans 
who went abroad to live would not lose their loyalty to the 
fatherland; and (2) to build up a merchant marine and a 
navy for its protection. 

In China, where all the acquisitions of European powers 
were of comparatively recent date and were still being ex- 
tended, Germany believed that she had the right to expect 
to gain a position equal to that of Great Britain at Hong- 
Kong, of France in Indo-China, and of Russia in Man- 
churia. She maintained that it was as necessary for her 
to have a fortified port to serve as a naval base in the Pa- 
cific for her fleet as it was for the other powers, and that by 



GERMAN WELTPOLITIK (1883-1905) 201 

securing a foothold on the Chinese coast she would be in a 
position to get her share of the commerce of the Far East. 
From 1895 to 1897 Germany carefully examined different 
points that might serve for the establishment of a naval and 
commercial base. At the beginning of 1897 a technical mis- 
sion was sent out to China whose membership included the 
famous Franzius, the creator of Kiel. This mission re- 
ported in favor of Kiau-chau on the peninsula of Shantung. 
As the other powers were preying upon China, Germany 
knew that none of them would be foolish enough to put in 
question their own titles by opposing her scheme openly. 
She knew also that there would be no concerted diplomatic 
support of China in resistance to her demands. For 
France and Russia were on bad terms with Great Britain, 
and they had been partners with Germany in compelling 
Japan to revise the treaty of Shimonoseki two years 
earlier. 

The murder of two missionaries in the interior of the 
coveted province on November 1, 1897, gave Germany her 
chance. War-vessels landed on the peninsula troops who 
seized Kiau-chau and Tsing-tau. By a treaty signed on 
March 6, 1899, Kiau-chau with adjacent territory was leased 
to Germany for ninety-nine years. The German capital and 
commerce were given preferential rights on the peninsula, 
together with a concession of the immediate construction 
of a railway and exclusive mining privileges along the rail- 
way line. Thus the greater part of the province of Shan- 
tung, with its forty million inhabitants, was concerted into 
a German sphere of influence. 

When Germany leased Kiau-chau, she solemnly declared 
that the port would be open — ein freir Hafen fur alle Na- 
tionen. But Japanese trade competition soon caused her 
to go back on her word. In 1906 she conceived a clever 
scheme by which the Chinese duties were to be collected 
within the German sphere in return for an annual sum of 
twenty per cent, of the total customs receipts of the Tsing- 



202 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tau district. In this way she more than reimbursed her- 
self — at the expense of the Japanese — for the generosity 
displaj^ed in allomng German goods to be subject to the 
Chinese customs. 

During the fifteen years of German control the leased 
territory and the concessions in the interior of Shantmig 
brought rich material returns to Germany. Kiau-chau was 
the only overseas enterprise that paid. But the Japanese 
felt that the naval base was as much of a menace to them as 
Port Arthur in Russian hands had been, and there was 
no doubt that Germany was a more formidable commercial 
competitor than Russia. Great Britain also felt that the 
presence of Germany on the coast of China was a potential 
menace to her trade and maritime supremacy. Russia and 
France in the Far East she had not feared so greatly. 
While the immediate result of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, 
concluded three years after the lease of Shantung to Ger- 
many, was to make possible the attack of Japan upon Rus- 
sia, it ultimately enabled Japan to drive Germany also 
from a base in China dangerously near her own coast. 

The most feasible aspect of the Weltpolitik was the eco- 
nomic penetration of Asiatic Turkey. The colonial ven- 
tures in Africa and Asia — notably at the time of the Her- 
ero War and the Boxer Rebellion — were bitterly opposed 
by many Germans, and never succeeded in firing the imagi- 
nation of the people. But the Germans have always been 
under the spell of the Mediterranean. Greece and Bible 
lands and the countries of Islam attract northern peoples 
in a peculiar way. The Weltpolitik, at work in the Ottoman 
Empire, received a popular indorsement that in time was 
extended to other foreign policies. The minarets of Con- 
stantinople and Damascus and Bagdad, glistening in the 
sun, Jerusalem the golden and Mecca the mysterious, the 
islands of the ^gean and the deserts of Arabia, camels 
and carpets, Ilarun al-Rashid and Suleiman the magnifi- 
cent—as a reader of the "Thousand and One Nights" would 



GERMAN WELTPOLITIK (1883-1905) 203 

fancy them — ^here we have the psychological background 
of the Drang nach Osten. Germany's "push to the East" 
was inspired by more than simple economic necessity, and 
it gradually grew into a movement that the Germans be- 
lieved to be a matter of national honor as well as national 
prosperity. 

The certainty of economic success helped to make worth 
while the political effort of the German statesmen, who 
knew that their goal could be achieved only by attaining 
control of Austria-Hungary and the Balkan States. Great 
Britain had an unobstructed path to Turkey by sea. Rus- 
sia was a neighbor of Turkey. Predominant influence in 
the Ottoman Empire would be advantageous to Germany 
only if she were able to assure herself of a land route to 
Turkey that could not be cut by her enemies. Hence, in 
considering the Weltpolitik in Turkey, we must include 
the relations between Germany and Austria-Hungary, Ger- 
many and the Balkan States, Austria-Hungary and the 
Balkan States, Austria-Hungary and Russia, and Russia 
and the Balkan States. Unless she backed Turkey against 
the Balkan States and Austria-Hungary against Russia, 
her position in Turkey was worth nothing to Germany. 

In 1888 a group of German financiers, underwritten by 
the Deutsche Bank, secured the concession for a railway 
line from Ismid to Angora in Asia Minor. The construc- 
tion of this line was followed by concessions for an exten- 
sion from Angora to Csesarea and a branch from the Ismid- 
Angora line running southwest from Eski Sheir to Konia. 
The extension to Csesarea was never made. That was not 
the direction in which the Germans wanted to go. The 
branch became the main line. Thus was bom the Berlin- 
Bagdad-Bassora "all rail route." The Baltic Sea was to 
be connected with the Persian Gulf. The Balkan penin- 
sula was to come under the influence of Austria-Hungary, 
and Asia Minor and Mesopotamia of Germany. The south 
Slavs and the peoples of the Ottoman Empire were to be 



204 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

dispossessed.^ Russia cut off from the Mediterranean, 
Germany at Constantinople, France checkmated in Syria, 
and Great Britain in Mesopotamia and Egypt — this was the 
pan-Germanic conception of the Bagdadbahn. 

The first railway concession granted to the Germans in 
Asia Minor coincided with the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm 
II, who in the next year (1889) made his first visit to 
Sultan Abdul Hamid. In 1898 a second visit was made, 
followed by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and this re- 
sulted in the granting of an extension of the original Eski 
Sheir-Konia concession to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. 
This revelation of Germany's ambition led to international 
intrigues and negotiations for a share in the construction 
of the line through Mesopotamia, and Germany had to ac- 
cept international participation in financing the project. 

Russia did not realize the danger of Gennan influence at 
Constantinople or foresee the eventualities of the German 
"pacific penetration" in Asia Minor. She adjusted the 
Macedonian question with Austria-Hungary at Miirzsteg 
in 1903 in order to have a free hand in Manchuria. Active 
opposition to Germany in the Near East was not begun 
by Petrograd until after Russian ambitions in the Far 
East had been shattered through the war yvith. Japan. 

The situation Avas different with Great Britain. The 
menace of the German approach to the Persian Gulf was 
brought to the attention of the British Foreign OflBce be- 
fore the Boer crisis became acute, and it was noted that, 
while Germany had sent engineers along the proposed route 
of her railway, she had neglected the fact that the sheik 
of Koweit, who ruled the projected terminus on the Persian 
Gulf, was virtually independent of Turkey. In 1899 Colonel 
Meade, the British resident of the Persian Gulf, signed 
^^ith the sheik of Koweit a secret convention that assured 
to the latter ''special protection" if he would make no 

* Ernst Hacckel actually prophesied this in a speech in 1905 before the 
Geographical Society of Jena. 



GERMAN WELTPOLITIK (1883-1905) 205 

cession of territory without the knowledge and consent of 
the British government. Some months later, when a Ger- 
man mission, headed by the kaiser's consul-general at Con- 
stantinople, arrived in Koweit to arrange the concession 
for the terminus of the Bagdadhalin, they found a recalci- 
trant sheik who refused to recognize the sultan's authority. 
A Turkish war-ship arrived. But British war-ships and 
blue-jackets upheld the independence of Koweit. This 
event was the beginning of a series of conflicts in foreign 
policies that changed the British and German peoples from 
friends to foes. 

From 1888 to 1905 the increase of German economic in- 
terests in the Ottoman Empire was rapid. But, as we have 
seen in the case of Koweit, politically Germany did not 
have things her own way. British opposition developed in 
regard to other concessions in Mesopotamia, and the at- 
tempts of German merchants and shippers to get a share of 
the river traffic and of the ocean freights from Bassora 
were bitterly resisted. 

From Mesopotamia to Persia was but a step. Germany 
began to think about railways and banks and markets in the 
shah's dominions. It was to her interest that Persia re- 
main independent, so that she could get a share of conces- 
sions and trade. But, rather than let Germany in, Eussia 
and Great Britain made an agreement to divide Persia 
into spheres of influence.^ In Morocco, the only other in- 
dependent Moslem country. Great Britain worked with 
Germany for some years to prevent France from monopo- 
lizing the country. But the British so greatly feared the 
growth of German commercial activities in the Near East 
that they decided to compound their colonial rivalry with 
France, and this necessitated abandoning opposition to 
France in Morocco.^ During the first decade of the twen- 
tieth century Germany found her influence in the Ottoman 

^ Sge Chapter XIV. 

^ There were, of course, other important considerations that made advisable 
the Anglo-French agreement of 1904. See Chapter XV. 



206 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Empire limited by the diplomatic manoeuvers of other 
powers, and saw fail her attempt to prevent Morocco and 
Persia from being included in the spheres of influence of 
rival powers by agreements made among themselves, to 
which Germany was not a party and for which she received 
no compensation. 

German statesmen did not give up their efforts to find 
*'a place in the sun." But they began to pay more attention 
to strengthening the cultural bonds between the fatherland 
and Germans in exile; to liberating merchants and manu- 
facturers from dependence upon foreign carriers for goods 
and raw materials; and, above all, to developing an army 
and navj^ that would give Germany the prestige and power 
she missed through her lack of extensive colonial dominions, 
well distributed along trade routes and varied in potential 
wealth. 



CHAPTER XVn 

THE FRANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO (1905-1911) 

IN the decade from 1904 to 1914 Morocco was ''taken 
over" by France, but not until Europe had been led 
from one international crisis through another to the catas- 
trophe of a world war. 

Unless the nature of sovereignty in the shereefian em- 
pire is kept in mind, one can not understand recent events 
in Morocco. There are three differences between the 
Moroccan conception of the state and ours: (1) The sul- 
tan's authority depends upon his recognition by other re- 
ligious chiefs who are, like himself, descendants of the 
Prophet. There is a traditional right of blood but not of 
primogeniture. (2), The state is not a geographical con- 
ception. The sultan rules over tribes, not over territories. 
(3) Some of the tribes have never recognized the sultan's 
authority. Morocco is divided into two distinct camps : the 
Makhzen (tribes that recognize the sultan's authority) 
and the Siba (tribes that are not vassals of the sultan). 
The Makhzen and the Siba are neighbors in every part of 
the. country. 

Since there is no united people under a ruler who has 
administrative control of definitely delimited territories, 
we see how absurd was the Anglo-German contention that 
Morocco must not ''lose her independence," and the French 
contention that the sultan was responsible for the actions of 
all the tribes within the region our maps call Morocco. Be- 
fore the British made the agreement of 1904 with France, 
the sultan could play off one power against another, and his 
anomalous "government" was allowed to exist. When 
France got a free hand, and Great Britain stood behind her 

207 



208 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

by preventing Germany from assuming the traditional role 
England herself had been playing, the sultan was brought 
face to face for the first time with the necessity of repre- 
senting geographical Morocco. He was asked to accept re- 
sponsibility for and to act in the name of tribes that had 
never recognized his or his ancestors' authority. 

The Moroccan crisis began in 1901 with the occupation 
by French troops of the oasis of Twat, on the northern 
edge of the Sahara Desert in the undefined hinterland be- 
tween Morocco and Algeria. The French were planning to 
establish lines of communication across the Sahara to their 
colonies of the Niger and the Senegal. These lines had to 
be protected from raiding tribes. It was also necessary, 
omng to the rapid development of Algeria and Tunisia, to 
bring under administrative control the Algerian hinterland. 
The French attitude towards Morocco was logical and not 
unreasonable. What France asked for she had the right 
to expect — that the sultan of Morocco should exercise 
authority over the tribes that were threatening the secur- 
ity and disturbing the prosperity of Oran, the Algerian 
province bordering on Morocco, or would refrain from op- 
posing France in taking the necessary military measures 
to reduce the Moorish tribes to order. The French declared 
^that if Morocco meant a definite geographical territory the 
Fez government was responsible for what happened in that 
territory. If the sultan made the plea that he was respon- 
sible oiiij for the acts of the Maldizen (i. e., the submitted 
tribes), France was not attacking his sovereignty or his 
government when she punished the Siba (i. e., unsubmitted 
tribes) and occupied their lands. 

The difficulty of France lay not so much \\ith Abdul Aziz 
and his native advisers as with the British and German 
ministers at Tangier, and Kaid Maclean, the instructor- 
general of the Moorish army, a Scotch adventurer subsi- 
dized by the British Foreign Office. As long as these three 
men kept telhng Abdul Aziz that it was his duty and right 



FRANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO 209 

to reject the French thesis, France could be put before the 
world — even before her own people — ^in the light of an ag- 
gressor, trying to bully the sovereign of the one remaining 
independent Mohammedan state of Africa. The agreement 
of 1904 eliminated the British, left the French and Ger- 
mans direct antagonists, and deprived the sultan of his 
most powerful support against France. 

A mission was sent at the beginning of 1905 to Fez to 
urge upon the sultan a scheme of reforming Morocco, in 
which France would be the adviser and *' elder brother" of 
the sultan. The Berber tribes, incensed against France for 
having extended her aggression from Twat into the 'Figig 
region, refused to obey a summons from Abdul Aziz to 
attend a divan to ''discuss the French proposals." They 
warned Abdul Aziz against listening to the treacherous 
words of the infidel. Most of the religious and tribal chiefs, 
however, assembled at Fez. The divan, like all Oriental as- 
semblies, was convoked for the purpose of assenting with* 
out discussion to the conclusion put before it by the gov- 
ernment. 

At this moment occurred the first German intervention. 
Germany was not a party to the Anglo-French agreement. 
She had no reason, then, to give up suddenly, as Great 
Britain had done, her interest in preserving the political 
and territorial integrity of Morocco. On March 31, 1905, 
Kaiser Wilhelm landed at Tangier, sent greetings to Ab- 
dul Aziz, and let it be known that he regarded Morocco as 
an independent country and intended, in spite of the Eng- 
lish defection, to continue to support the sultan against in- 
trigues that were threatening to destroy him and his coun- 
try. The kaiser 's visit to Morocco was for only two hours, 
but it gave Abdul Aziz and his ministers courage to resist 
the demands of the French mission. On May 28 the sul- 
tan formally rejected the French proposals, referring to 
the decision of the divan as the ground of their non pos- 
sumus. 



210 AN INTRODUCTION TO AVOELD POLITICS 

The government of the Makhzen, accepting the sugges- 
tion of the German minister, proposed an international 
conference of all the powers to decide upon the status of 
Morocco before the world. The British Foreign Office re- 
fused to accept the conference unless France were willing. 
M. Delcasse strongly advised the French cabinet to refuse 
the proposal for a conference, nomatterwliatmiglitliappen. 
His colleagues, however, fearing a war T\ith Germany, for 
which they were not prepared and on an issue that was 
not clear to their ot\ti electorate, much less to the world, 
could not bring themselves to follow the foreign minister's 
advice. M. Delcasse resigned. This was the beginning of 
the actual gathering of the war clouds that were to break a 
decade later. 

The conference was first set for Tangier, after long ne- 
gotiations between the powers and Morocco. During these 
negotiations Abdul Aziz borrowed two and a half million 
dollars from German financiers, and gave to German con- 
tractors the concession for harbor work at Tangier. Bu 
Hamara, a pretender, continued his war against the sultan, 
and it was believed that he might — perhaps with the con- 
nivance of the I\Iakhzen — make some coup that would up- 
set European calculations before the conference met. The 
Oriental delay of the IMoors caused the postponement of 
the conference, and Bu Hamara 's activity a change of its 
place of meeting. 

On January 17, 1906, a conference of European states, 
to which the United States of America was admitted, met 
at Algeciras to decide the international status of Morocco. 
For some time the attitude of the German delegates was un- 
compromising. They maintained the kaiser's thesis as set 
forth at Tangier: the complete independence of Morocco. 
But they finally yielded, and acknowledged the right of 
France and Spain to organize in Morocco an international 
police. 

The convention was signed on April 7. It provided for : 



FBANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO 211 

(1) police under the sovereign authority of the sultan, re- 
cruited from Moorish moslems, and distributed in the eight 
open ports; (2) Spanish and French officers, placed at his 
disposal by their governments, to assist the sultan; (3) 
limitation of the total effective of this police force from 
two thousand to two thousand five hundred, of French and 
Spanish officers, commissioned sixteen to twenty, and non- 
commissioned thirty to forty, appointed for five years; 
(4) an inspector-general, a high officer of the Swiss army, 
chosen subject to the approval of the sultan, with resi- 
dence at Tangier; (5) a State Bank of Morocco, in which 
each of the signatory powers had the right to subscribe 
capital; (6) tlie right of foreigners to acquire property, 
and to build upon it, in any part of Morocco; (7) France's 
exclusive right to enforce regulations in the frontier region 
of Algeria and a similar right to Spain in the frontier 
region of Spain; (8) the preservation of the public services 
of the empire from alienation for private interests. 

Chancellor von Billow's speech in the Reichstag on April 
5, 1906, was a justification of Germany's attitude. He de- 
clared that the policy of Wilhelmstrasse had been far from 
bellicose and that Germany's demands were altogether rea- 
sonable. The time had come, declared the chancellor, when 
German interests in the remaining independent portions 
of Africa and Asia must be considered by Europe. In 
going to Tangier and in forcing the conference of Algeciras, 
Germany had laid down the principle that there must be 
equal opportunities for Germans in independent countries, 
and had demonstrated that she was prepared to enforce this 
principle. 

When one considers the remarkable growth in popula- 
tion and the industrial and maritime evolution of Ger- 
many, this attitude can not be wondered at, much less con- 
demned. Germany, deprived of fruitful colonies by her 
late entrance among nations, was finding it necessary to 
adopt and uphold the policy of trying to prevent the pre- 



212 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

emption, for the benefit of her rivals, of those parts of the 
world that were still free. 

Neither France nor Spain had any feeling of loyalty 
towards the convention of Algeciras. However much may 
have been written to prove this loyalty, the facts of the few 
years following Algeciras are con\dncing. After 1908 
Spain, provoked and led on by the tremendous expenditures 
entailed upon her by the Riff campaigns, began to consider 
the region of Morocco in which she was installed as exclu- 
sively Spanish territory. French writers have expended 
much energy and ingenuity in proving the disinterested- 
ness of French efforts to enforce loj^allj^ the decisions of 
Algeciras. But there has never been a moment that France 
did not dream of the completion of the vast colonial empire 
in north Africa by the inclusion of Morocco. It has been 
the goal towards which all her military and civil admin- 
istrations in Algeria and the Sahara have been working. 
To bring about the do^\Tifall of the sultan's authority, not 
only press campaigns were undertaken, but anarchy on 
the Algerian frontier was allowed to go on unchecked until 
military measures seemed justifiable. 

In a similar way, the German colonists of Morocco did 
their best to bring about another intervention by Germany. 
Their methods were so despicable and outrageous that 
they had frequently to be disavowed officialh''. In 1910 the 
German Foreign Office found the claims of Mannesmann 
Brothers to certain mining pri\'ileges invalid because they 
did not fulfil the requirements of the act of Algeciras. But 
the Mannesmann mining group, as well as other German 
enterprises in Morocco, were secretly encouraged to make 
all the trouble they could for the French while defending 
the authority of the sultan. The Casablanca incident is 
only one of numerous affronts that the French were asked 
to swallow. 

In the spring of 1911 it was realized everywhere in Eu- 
rope that the sultan's authority was even less than it had 



FRANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO 213 

been in 1905. The Berber tribes were in arms on all sides. 
In March accounts began to appear of danger at Fez, not 
only to European residents, but also to the sultan. The 
reports of the French consul, and the telegrams of corre- 
spondents of two Paris newspapers, were most alarming. 
On April 2 it was announced that the Berber tribes had 
actually attacked the city and were besieging it. Every- 
thing was prepared for the final act of the drama. 

A relief column of native troops under Major Bremond 
arrived in Fez on April 26. The next day, an urgent mes- 
sage for relief having been received from Colonel Mangin 
in Fez, Colonel Brulard started for the capital with another 
column. Without waiting for further word, a French 
army, which had been carefully prepared for the purpose, 
entered Morocco under General Moinier. On May 21 Fez 
was occupied by the French. They found that all was well 
there with the Europeans and with the natives. But, for- 
tunately for the French plans, Muley Hafid^s brother had 
set himself up at Mequinez as pretender to the throne. The 
sultan could now retain his sovereignty only by putting 
himself under the protection of the French army., Morocco 
had lost her independence. 

Germany made no objection to the French expeditionary 
corps in April. She certainly did not expect the quick suc- 
cession of events in May that brought her face to face with 
the fait accompli of a strong French army in Fez. As soon 
as it was realized at Berlin that the fiction of Moroccan 
independence had been so skilfully terminated, France was 
asked ''what compensation she would give to Germany in 
return for a free hand in Morocco." The pourparlers 
dragged on through several weeks in June. France refused 
to acknowledge any ground for compensation to Germany. 
She maintained that the recent action in Morocco had been 
at the request of the sultan and that it was a matter en- 
tirely between him and France. 

Germany saw that a bold stroke was necessary. On July 



214 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

1 the gunboat Panther went to Agadir, a port on the Atlan- 
tic coast of Morocco. To Great Britain and to France, the 
despatch of the Panther was represented as due to the 
necessity of protecting German interests, seeing that there 
was anarchy in that part of Morocco. But the German 
newspapers, even those that were supposed to have official 
relations with'Wilhelmstrasse, spoke as if a demand for the 
cession of Mogador or some other portion of Morocco were 
contemplated. The chancellor explained to the Eeichstag 
that the sending of the Panther was 'Ho show the world 
that Germany was firmly resolved not to be pushed to 
one side." 

But in the negotiations through the German ambassador 
in Paris it was clear that Germany was playing a game of 
political blackmail. The German Foreign Office shifted 
its claims from Morocco to concessions in central Africa. 
On July 15 it asked for the whole of the French Congo from 
the sea to the River Sanga, and a renunciation in Ger- 
many's favor of France's contingent claims to the succes- 
sion of the Belgian Congo. The reason given for this 
demand was that if Morocco Avere to pass under a French 
protectorate it was only just that compensation should be 
given to Germany elsewhere. France, for the moment, 
hesitated. She definitely refused to entertain the idea of 
compensation as soon as she had received the assurance of 
the aid of Great Britain in supporting her against the 
German claims. 

On July 1 the German ambassador had notified Sir Ed- 
ward Grey of the despatch of the Panther to Agadir "in 
response to the demand for protection from German firms 
there," and explained that Germany considered the ques- 
tion of Morocco reopened by the French occupation of Fez, 
and thought that it would be possible to make an agree- 
ment with Spain and France for the partition of Morocco, 
On July 4 Sir Edward Grey, after a consultation with the 
cabinet, answered that Great Britain could recognize no 



FRANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO 215 

change in Morocco without consulting France, to whom 
she was bound by treaty. The ambassador then explained 
that his government would not consider the reopening of 
the question in a European conference, that it was a matter 
directly between Germany and France, and that his over- 
ture to Sir Edward Grey had been merely in the nature of 
a friendly explanation. 

Germany believed that the constitutional crisis in Great 
Britain was so serious that the hands of the Liberal cabinet 
would be tied, and that they would not be so foolhardy as 
to back up France at the moment when they themselves 
were being so bitterly assailed by the most influential ele- 
ments of the British electorate on the question of limiting 
the veto power of the House of Lords. It was in this belief 
that Germany on July 15 asked for territorial cessions from 
France in central Africa. Wilhelmstrasse thought the mo- 
ment well chosen and that there was every hope of success. 

But the German mentality has never seemed to appre- 
ciate the frequent lesson of history that the British people 
are able to distinguish clearly between matters of internal 
and external policy. Bitterly assailed as a traitor to his 
country because he advocates certain changes of laws, a 
British cabinet minister can still be conscious of the fact 
that his bitterest opponents will rally around him when he 
takes a stand on a matter of foreign policy. This knowl- 
edge of admirable national solidarity enabled Mr. Lloyd 
George on July 21, the very day on which the king gave his 
consent to the creation of new peers to bring the House 
of Lords to reason, at a Mansion House banquet, to warn 
Germany against the danger of pressing her demands upon 
France. The effect, both in London and Paris, was to 
unify and strengthen resistance. 

Since the visit of the kaiser in Tangier in 1905, the Brit- 
ish people had come to look upon Germany, instead of upon 
France or Russia, as the next enemy. They felt that Ger- 
many, by the creation of the ''High Seas Fleet," was pre- 



216 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

paring for war. In the competitive building of naval war- 
vessels the British knew that they were bound to fall behind 
if they attempted to carry out their "two keels to one" 
policy. A feeling of public sympathy for France, which 
the press had been fostering ever since the consummation 
of the agreement of 1904, was strengthened by the unsuc- 
cessful attempt, made in 1908, by British statesmen to come 
to a naval agreement v^ith Germany, on the basis, of course, 
of the acknowledgment of British supremac3\ Taxes due 
to the race in naval building were increasingly heavy, and 
British public opinion had begun to regard France as a 
friend to be cultivated and supported against Germany. 

But the ways of diplomacy are tortuous. Throughout 
August and September Germany blustered and threatened. 
In September events happened to embarrass Eussia and tie 
her hands, as in the first Moroccan imbroglio of 1905. 
Premier Stolypin was assassinated at Kiev on September 
14; the United States denounced her commercial treaty 
with Russia because of the question of Jewish passports; 
and the Shuster affair in Persia was occupying the serious 
attention of Russian diplomacy. Had it not been for the 
loyal and scrupulous attitude of the British government 
towards Russia in the Persian question, Germany might 
have been tempted to force the issue mth France. 

GeiTQan demands grew more moderate, but were not 
abandoned. For members of the House of Commons, of 
the extreme Radical \ving in the Liberal party, began to 
put the British government in an uncomfortable position. 
Militarism, entangling alliances with a continental power, 
the necessity for agreement with Germany — these were the 
subjects that found their way from the floor of the House 
to the public press. A portion of the Liberal party that 
had to be reckoned wdth behevcd that Germany ought not 
to have been left out of the Anglo-French agreement. So 
serious was the dissatisfaction that the government deemed 
it necessary to make an explanation to the House. Sir 



FRANCO-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER MOROCCO 217 

Edward Grey explained and defended the action of the 
cabinet in supporting the resistance of France to Ger- 
many's claims. The whole history of the negotiation was 
revealed. The Anglo-French agreement of 1904 was pub- 
lished for the first time, and it was seen that this agree- 
ment did not commit Great Britain to backing France by 
force of arms. 

Uncertainty of British support made France consent to 
treat with Germany on the Moroccan question. Two agree- 
ments were signed. By the first, Germany recognized the 
French protectorate in Morocco, subject to the adhesion 
of the signers of the convention of Algeciras, and waived 
her right to take part in the negotiations concerning Moroc- 
can spheres of influence between Spain and France. On 
her side, France agreed to maintain the open door in 
Morocco, and to refrain from any measures that would 
hinder the legitimate extension of German commercial and 
mining interests. By the second agreement France ceded 
to Germany, in return for German cessions, certain terri- 
tories that were added to southern and eastern Kamerun, 
and that brought the Kamerun frontier in two places to 
the Congo Eiver. It was a ''mutilation," as the French 
called it, of their equatorial Africa. 

There was a stormy parliamentary and newspaper dis- 
cussion, both in France and Germany, over these two- 
treaties. None was satisfied. The treaties were finally 
ratified, but under protest. 

In France the ministry was subject to severe criticism. 
There was also some feeling of bitterness — perhaps a reac- 
tion from the satisfaction over Mr. Lloyd George's Man- 
sion House speech — in the uncertainty of Great Britain's 
support, as revealed by the November discussions in the 
House of Commons. This uncertainty remained, as far as 
French public opinion went, until Great Britain actually 
declared war upon Germany in August, 1914. 

In Germany the Reichstag debates revealed the belief 



218 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

that the Agadir expedition had, in the final analysis, re- 
sulted in a fiasco. An astonishing amount of enniit}- 
against Great Britain was displaj^ed. It was when Herr 
Heydebrand made a bitter speech against Great Britain, 
and denounced the pacific attitude of the German govern- 
ment, in the Eeichstag session of November 10, that the 
crowm prince made public his position in German foreign 
policy by applauding loudly. 

The aftermath of Agadir, as far as it affected Morocco, 
resulted in the establishment of the French protectorate 
on March 30, 1912. The sultan signed away his indepen- 
dence by the treaty of Fez. Foreign legations at Fez 
ceased to exist, although diplomatic ofi&cials were retained 
at Tangier. France voted the maintenance of forty thou- 
sand troops in Morocco ''for the purposes of pacification." 
The last complications disappeared when, on November 
27, a Franco-Spanish treaty was signed at Madrid, in which 
the Spanish zones in Morocco were defined and both states 
promised not to erect fortifications or strategic works on 
the Moroccan coast. 

The afteimath of Agadir in France and Germany was 
an increase in naval.and miUtary annaments, and the crea- 
tion of a spirit of tension that needed only the three years 
of war in the Ottoman Empire to bring about the inevitable 
clash between Teuton and Gaul. 




FRENCH CESSIONS TO GERMANY IN THE CONGO: 1912 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE YOUNG TURK EEVOLUTION AND ITS REACTIONS 

(1908-1911) 

ON July 24, 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid was compelled 
by the defection of his army to yield to the demand 
of the Young Turks to resuscitate the constitution of 1876, 
which had been in abeyance for more than thirty years. ^ 
In their movement for constitutional government the Young 
Turks worked against insuperable odds until they were 
able to win over to their cause high officials, civilian and 
military, by demonstrating that the continuance of des- 
potic and irresponsible government would entail the speedy 
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Like all other 
Oriental countries, Turkey was being preyed upon by the 
powers, for the simple reason that misrule and corruption 
made her too weak to resist political intrigues and economic 
pressure from outside that were gradually diminishing 
her authority and sovereignty. The Young Turks argued 
that representative government, and that alone, would 
bring about the regeneration of their country. The salva- 
tion of Turkey, they declared, depended upon instilling into 
the various elements of the empire the belief that a con- 
stitutional regime, in which all would have a voice, meant 
security of life and property and economic well-being 
for all. 

The idea was excellent, and all Europe hoped that it 
would work out successfully. The greatest danger to the 
peace of Europe had been a weak Turkey, unable to take 
care of herself, and it was assumed that a strong and pros- 

^ See pp. 100-101. 

219 



220 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

perous Turkey, able to resist all aggressors and pay her 
obligations, would remove from international relations 
trouble-breeding problems. No European statesman be- 
lieved that his country would ever be allowed by the other 
powers a free hand to dominate and exploit Turkey. There- 
fore complications and embarrassments arising from the 
constant demands for intervention by bankers and humani- 
tarians to protect investments and oppressed Christians 
could be avoided if Turkey reformed herself and became a 
constitutional state. The failure of the Young Turk regime 
can not be laid at the door of European statesmen, who had 
every reason for wanting the experiment to succeed. 

But the heritage of the past was too strong to be over- 
come. The Yomig Turks had to bear the consequences of 
the policies of the old regime, and of their o^vn folly in 
assuming and acting upon three false assumptions: (1) 
that the parts of the empire that had freed themselves 
from the control of Constantinople or had never been gov- 
erned except nominally by the sultan would surrender their 
privileged position for the as yet unproved benefits of the 
constitution; (2) that a Mohammedan theocracy could be 
reconciled with European political and judicial institu- 
tions; and (3) that the Turkish element would continue, 
under the changed conditions, to be able to dominate the 
other elements. 

From the first day of the revolution the Young Turks 
announced their intention of doing away mth the agree- 
ments and decrees by w^hich outlying pro^^nces had been 
granted autonomy or were temporarily administered by 
other powers. Since Turkey now had a constitution, which 
guaranteed equal rights to all, there could be no valid ex- 
cuse for a special status for any part of the empire, and 
so all provinces would be expected to return to the "mother 
country" and resume their old place in the Ottoman family. 
This policy would mean the restoration to Turkey of Bos- 
nia, llcrzegovina, and the Sanjak of Novibazar by Austria- 



THE* YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION (1908-1911) 221 

Hungary, of Cyprus and Egypt by Great Britain ; the loss 
by the Cretans of their virtual independence; and would 
bring into question the autonomy of Bulgaria. The Young 
Turks did not have to wait long to discover that the resus- 
citation of the constitution, thus interpreted, meant the 
opposite of what they had planned. Austria-Hungary an- 
nexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which she had been holding 
since the Congress of Berlin; Bulgaria proclaimed her 
independence and Prince Ferdinand was crowned king at 
Timova, seat of the ancient Bulgarian czars; and the 
Cretan assembly decreed the union of Crete with Greece 
and took the oath of allegiance to King George. Although 
there was some effervescence in Cyprus, its object was 
annexation to Greece and not return to Turkey; while the 
Egyptians made it clear that their movement to free them- 
selves from Great Britain was not to be interpreted as a 
desire to be reunited with the Ottoman Empire. 

The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, although a 
violation of the treaty of Berlin, was not vetoed by the 
great powers. They accepted the fait accompli. The 
Turkish government received only non-committal responses 
from the other signatories of the treaty. Eussia, the most 
interested power and the traditional champion of the Bal- 
kan Slavs, had hardly recovered from the war with Japan 
and internal political disturbances. France was at the 
moment preparing to violate another international agree- 
ment, the convention of Algeciras. Italy was making her 
plans for doing in Tripoli what Austria-Hungary had done 
in the two Balkan provinces. Great Britain was afraid 
to hale Austria-Hungary before an international confer- 
ence for fear that the question of Egypt might make pos- 
sible an embarrassing tu quoque. Had Russia insisted 
upon a conference, as Germany did two years earlier in 
the case of Morocco, Italy and Germany (the former be- 
cause the annexation cut off the Serbians from the Adriatic 
and the latter because it created a situation advantageous 



222 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

to her Drang nacli Osten) could not have been relied 
upon to take a stand against their partner in the Triple 
Alhance. 

Turkey found herself isolated, no power being willing 
to support her demand upon Austria-Hungary to restore 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a brief period of mid 
agitation, during which Austro-Hungarian goods and ships 
were boycotted in Turkey,^ the Sublime Porte agreed to 
take a cash payment for the two provinces. Serbia was 
not so easily appeased. Bosnia and Herzegovina not only 
lay between her and the sea, but were inhabited by people 
of Serbian blood and language, who had an essential place 
in her dream of Greater Serbia. The annexation of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina fanned the fires of Serbian nationalism, 
which burned harmlessly for several years until the Balkan 
wars and the recovery of Russia made them blaze into a 
European conflagration.- 

Like the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the proc- 
lamation of the complete independence of Bulgaria had 
international importance beyond merely confirming a long 
estabhshed de facto situation. Bulgaria, freed of all tech- 
nical restraints and master of her railways, immediately 
developed a military strength that alarmed Rumania and 
made Serbia and Greece feel that Bulgaria had become a 
more serious and formidable rival for the devolution of 
Macedonia. Independent Bulgaria gained immeasurably 
in prestige in the eyes of Macedonians. In many districts 
communities that, hitherto, had been uncertain whether to 
pose as Bulgars or Serbs now saw in Bulgaria their hope 

* Most of the red fezes worn by Ottoman subjects were of Austrian origin. 
In their first anger the Turks destroyed these, tearing them from their heads 
and trampling on them in the bazaars. But they soon found that they could 
get now ones only by buying from Vienna, which meant that the boycott cre- 
ated a market for more fezes, to the profit of the Austrian manufacturers! 

* The Hapsburg heir was aswassinated by a Serbian student during an offi- 
cial visit to the capital of Bosnia. Tho assassin belonged to a secret Serbian 
society, the Narodny Obrana, whose propaganda in the Serbian-speaking prov- 
inces of the Hapsburg empire was believed by Vienna statesmen to threaten 
the existence of Austria-Hungary. 



THE YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION (1908-1911) 223 

of redemption from the Ottoman yoke. In 1913, and again 
in 1915, this fact profoundly influenced the course of Euro- 
pean history. 

Long before the Young Turk Revolution, the three Medi- 
terranean naval powers, Great Britain, France, and Italy, 
together with Russia, had been striving by diplomacy and 
force to prevent the union of Crete with Greece. In their 
effort to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, 
the great powers had failed to stifle the aspirations of the 
Balkan peoples. But because Crete was an island, and a 
few war-vessels could do the trick, Crete was the victim of 
the desire of the powers to demonstrate to Turkey that 
they were her friends. After the revolution of 1908 the 
four ' 'protecting powers" did not change their inhibitory 
policy towards Crete. The decree of union with Greece was 
vetoed, and when the Greek flag was hoisted by the Cretans 
under the leadership of Venizelos, their principal insurgent 
leader, the four powers made a naval demonstration and 
landed marines.^ Their consuls at Candia informed the 
Cretans that their governments were resolved to maintain 
the rights of Turkey and to prevent Crete from joining 
Greece. 

The persistence of the powers in this policy convinced 
Venizelos that Crete could be freed only by making 
Greece strong enough to defy Turkey, in cooperation with 
the other Balkan states. All these states, since the failure 
of the Mtirzsteg program,^ in view of the attitude of the 
powers towards Crete, had given up hope of substantial aid 
from any of the powers in protecting and eventually eman- 
cipating numbers of their people who were still under 
Ottoman rule. When we consider the role of Venizelos in 
the wars that followed, we realize the importance of the 

* This had been done before. For a full account of the successive Cretan 
revolutions and the relations of the protecting powers with the insurgents, the 
Sublime Porte, and Greece, see my "Venizelos" (in The Modern Statesmen 
series), pp. 12-83. 

' See pp. 110, 248-249. 



224 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Cretan imbroglio among the events leading up to the 
World War. 

The assumption of the Young Turks that a constitutional 
regime entailed the abohtion of a special status or of priv- 
ileges for every element in the empire resulted in the 
immediate loss of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, and 
hastened the severing of the bonds between Constantinople 
and Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, and Tripoli. It also led to rebel- 
lion among Albanians and some of the Arabs, and disaffec- 
tion among Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and the rest of the 
Arabs. The Young Turk movement resulted in the aliena- 
tion of territories to win back which it was launched, and 
it led to hopeless antagonism instead of haraionious coop- 
eration between the Turkish and non-Turkish elements of 
the empire. Albanians and Arabs, although largely of the 
same rehgion as the Turks, were not assimilated ^\^.th their 
conquerors, and over large portions of Albania and 
Arabia the sultans had never been able to secure for Con- 
stantinople the recognition of any other than religious 
authority. 

The tribes were left to themselves, and the Turks wisely 
refrained from collecting taxes or insisting upon miUtary 
service, and did not extend administrative control except 
in large cities along waterways and in ports. The consti- 
tutional Young Turks attempted to do what the autocratic 
Abdul Ilamid had never dared to do. They called upon 
Albanians and Arabs to pay taxes and join the army, and, 
when they refused to do so, sent expeditions to put do^^^l 
the rebellions thej^ themselves had provoked. Between 
1909 and 1912 the Ottoman government was drained finan- 
cially and militarily by its attempt to compel the Albanians 
and Arabs to accept the full responsibilities of Ottoman 
citizenship under a constitutional government. 

In logically follo\\ing the same policy, the Greeks, Ar- 
menians, and Syrians were asked to surrender the special 
status granted them at the time of the Ottoman conquest. 



THE YOUNG TURK EE VOLUTION (1908-1911) 225 

Owing to fundamental differences between Mohammedan 
and Christian institutions, the Ottoman sultans of the 
period of conquest recognized the Christians as separate 
millets (nations), with a certain degree of autonomy under 
their clergy. Questions of inheritance, property, marriage 
and divorce, education, and legal disputes between Chris- 
tians were left to be settled among themselves. Upon the 
payment of a head-tax Christians were exempted from mili- 
tary service. All these privileges the Young Turks deter- 
mined to abolish, and expected the Christians to yield, on 
the sole ground that constitutional government made their 
continuance unnecessary and impossible. 

Had the Young Turks been willing to establish a genuine 
constitutional government, on the model of European 
states, they would have been justified in asking for the sur- 
render of both de facto and de jure privileges or excep- 
tional situations. But their idea of constitutional govern- 
ment was modified by the assumption that the new political 
institutions did not necessitate the surrender either of the 
Shari'a (Mohammedan jurisprudence) or of Turkish 
hegemony in the empire. Mohammedan law made no pro- 
vision for non-Moslems, and long experience had taught 
that while the Shari'a was enforced no code of civil law 
could be devised that would provide for the needs of 
Christians and at the same time guarantee them equal 
justice. 

The elections to the first parliament, repeated in the sec- 
ond and third parliaments, demonstrated that the Turks 
were determined to have a majority, irrespective of the 
numbers and geographical distribution of other peoples in 
the empire, whether Moslem or Christian. The political 
history of Europe shows that by restrictions in the electo- 
rate and by skilful gerrymandering it is possible for a 
dominant class or racial element to maintain itself. But 
this element must be superior in virility, wealth, intelli- 
gence, and background of capabilities, if not in number, to 



226 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the other elements. The Turks had been predominant in 
their heterogeneous empire up to the nineteenth century by 
force and during the nineteenth century by the aid of 
European powers. Albanians, Arabs, Syrians, Greeks, and 
Armenians outnumbered the Turks, and, if fair elections 
had been held, would have been able to control the parha- 
ment. This danger was immediately sensed by the Young 
Turks, who used their hold on the central government at 
Constantinople and on the army to build up a despotism 
worse than that of Abdul Hamid. 

From 1908 to 1911 Turkey was ruled by a secret organ- 
ization, called the Committee of Union and Progress, which 
contained only a handful of non-Turks. This committee 
ran the parliamentary elections and dictated every policy 
of successive cabinets. By a fanatical effort to make Turk- 
ish the language of the administration of local government 
and courts throughout the empire, and by asserting the 
right of Turkish nationalism to be regarded as synonymous 
Avith Ottoman nationality, the Young Turks aroused a 
counter-nationalism among Albanians, Arabs, Syrians, 
Greeks, and Armenians. 

These movements in turn forced the Near Eastern ques- 
tion once more to the front among international problems. 
The massacre of thirty thousand Armenians in Cilicia and 
northern Syria in the spring of 1909 caused a revival of 
the demand of the humanitarians, especially in England, 
that the powers fulfil their obligation under the treaty of 
Berlin and compel the Turks to institute serious adminis- 
trative reforms in the vilayets (provinces) inhabited by 
Armenians. Russia began to dream once more of Con- 
stantinople. Germany was able to increase her economic 
hold on Turkey by representing herself as the disinterested 
defender of Islam against the rapacity of the other Euro- 
pean powers. Italy saw that she would have to act quickly 
in Tripoli or lose her hope of annexing that province. Al- 
banian nationalism, which had never before manifested 



TH:^ young TURK REVOLUTION (1908-1911) 227 

itself as a unifying force, began to worry the Adriatic 
powers, Italy and Austria-Hungary, and Albania's cov- 
etous neighbors, Greece and Serbia. Most important of 
all, the danger to Hellenism throughout the Ottoman Em- 
pire, and to all the Christian peoples in European Turkey, 
drove into one another's arms, for common action against 
Turkey, the Balkan peoples, whose animosities and rival- 
ries Abdul Hamid had known so well how to exploit. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ITALIAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA (1882-1911) 

ITALY, like Germany, did not achieve her pohtical unity 
until the new impulsion given to the overseas expansion 
of Europe by the development of steam power in industrj'- 
and transportation was half a century old. The most 
promising fields for colonization had been preempted. The 
titles to the most conveniently and strategically placed 
ports in Africa and Asia w^ere already acquired by other 
powers, especially Great Britain. This was true even in 
the Mediterranean. Great Britain was not at all, and 
France only partly, a Mediterranean country, while Italy 
was wholly a Mediterranean country. And yet, when the 
Italians began to think of Italy as a world power, they had 
to face and make the best of a situation in the Mediter- 
ranean that was disadvantageous to their unhampered 
political and economic development. France held Corsica 
and Great Britain Malta. The British controlled the 
passage from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Pos- 
session of Algeria gave France a great start in African 
colonization. 

As if this were not enough, the efforts of Italian states- 
men to find a place for Italy in Africa were met by a further 
drastic increase of the hold of Great Britain and France 
upon the Mediterranean. In 1878 the British occupied 
C^TDrus, and in 1882 they entered Egj-pt and became mas- 
ters of Italy's only other outlet to the world. The greatest 
blow to Italy's colonial ambitions, however, was the signa- 
ture of the treaty of Bardo, on May 12, 1881, by which the 
bey of Tunisia accepted the protectorate of France. Only 
twenty-four hours earlier the French minister of foreign 

228 



ITALIAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA (1882-1911) 229 

affairs, at the instance of Premier Ferry, had assured the 
ItaHan ambassador in Paris that France ''had no thought 
of occupying Tunisia, or any part of Tunisian territory, 
beyond some points of the Kroumir country." Indigna- 
tion and disappointment drove Italy into the arms of Ger- 
many and Austria-Hungary. Shortly after the French 
occupied Tunisia, she became a member of the Triple 
Alliance, to which she remained faithful until after the 
outbreak of the World War. 

The extension of French political control over Tunisia 
has always rankled in the minds of the Italians, and the 
resentment is still keen forty years after the event. A few 
months before the French invasion, the Italian government 
had purchased from an English company, at eight times its 
value, the only railway in Tunisia. Large numbers of 
Italians were settled there, while France could lay claim to 
very few nationals.^ Tunisia was the most promising and 
most logical colonizing possibility that Italy ever cherished. 
Moreover, its proximity to Sicily, at the narrowest part of 
the Mediterranean, made its possession appear to be of 
great importance for the security of Italy. Italian writers 
denounced the conversion of Bizerta into a naval base by 
the French as a menace. 

The first foothold in Africa was secured on the Eed Sea 
coast at a time when Egypt was just becoming the center 
of acute international rivalry. The port of Assab was 
occupied in 1880, to make effective a title granted by the 
local sovereign to an Italian merchant ten years earlier. 
The British and the French, who were at loggerheads in 
Egypt, resented this intrusion, and made Italy promise not 
to fortify Assab or even keep a garrison there. When the 
affairs of Egypt reached a crisis in the early summer of 

^Even after forty years of French occupation the Italians are by far the 
largest foreign element. Exact figures can not be given, for the French 
authorities make a distinction between Italians and "Anglo-Maltese," while 
among the French are included a large number of native Jews. From the 
official census, however, it is safe to say that in 1922 there are more than three 
Italians to every Frenchman in Tunisia. 



230 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

1882, Assab was proclaimed an Italian crown colony. Italy, 
like France, was invited by Great Britain to take part in 
the aiTQed intervention in Egypt. She refused, and, when 
the British acted alone, Italian diplomacy asserted itself 
at Cairo to encourage resistance to Great Britain's stay- 
ing on indefinitely and consolidating the hold her army 
gave her upon Eg-j^t and the canal. 

When the British decided to abandon the Sudan, they 
encouraged the Itahans to extend their zone of occupation 
northward along the Red Sea to Massawa, which was seized 
by an Italian expeditionary force in February, 1885. Only 
the fall of the Gladstone government prevented the further 
extension of the Italian occupation to Suakim. SaUsbury 
reversed the decision to mthdraw the Anglo-Egyptian 
troops from this port. But there was no opposition to the 
Massawa adventure, because it was natural for the British 
to prefer weak and inexperienced Italy to Russia or France 
in the neighborhood of the Sudan. It was common knowl- 
edge that both Paris and Petrograd planned to use Mas- 
sawa as a base for intrigues in the Sudan by which to 
embarrass the British and that they would attempt to estab- 
lish a protectorate over Abyssinia. 

For several years the Italians had a free hand in their 
dealings mth Abyssinia. Intervening in dynastic wars, 
they successfully backed Menelek against another claimant. 
In return for recognition as emperor, Menelek agreed, in 
September, 1889, to a treaty by which frontier territories 
were ceded to the Assab colony and the foreign relations 
of Abyssinia were put in the hands of the Italian govern- 
ment. Italy notified the powers that Abyssinia was an 
Italian protectorate. The British government discounted 
the ability of the Italians to exercise influence in Abyssinia, 
and willingly admitted the Italian contention that Abys- 
sinia was within the Italian sphere of influence, in return 
for Italy's promise not to penetrate the Sudan but to 



ITALIAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA (1882-1911) 231 

recognize British rights in the upper Nile. The Italian 
Red Sea coast territories were consolidated into the crown 
colony of Eritrea. 

To the east and south of Abyssinia, the triangle between 
the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean is inhabited by 
Arab tribes, which have largely succeeded, as have similar 
tribes of the Arabian peninsula opposite, in holding their 
own against all European comers. In the Gulf of Aden, 
France and Great Britain held parts of Somaliland. The 
French colony of Djibouti prevented the extension of 
Eritrea southward to the entrance of the Red Sea. Beyond 
Djibouti, to the east, lay British Somaliland. But the 
Italians were allowed to occupy the long strip of land on 
the Indian Ocean from Cape Guardafui south to the river 
Juba, which formed the northern boundary of British East 
Africa. The crown colony of Benadir was established, and 
gradually treaties with Somali sultans brought Italy to the 
frontier of Abyssinia on the southeast as well as on the 
north. 

Alarmed by Italian demands, constantly reiterated, for 
boundaries that would rob Abyssinia of valuable territory, 
and by the pretension of Italy to stand between Menelek 
and relations with the other powers, the emperor refused 
to recognize the Italian protectorate. After a long period 
of fruitless negotiations, the Italians decided to use force. 
They invaded Abyssinia, and were defeated by Emperor 
Menelek in a decisive battle before they had penetrated 
very far toward the capital, which they believed they were 
going to reach without great effort. The costly battle of 
Adowa caused a revulsion of feeling in Italy against colo- 
nial ventures. March 1, 1896, marked the destruction of 
the prestige of Italy in Africa, and it has never been re- 
stored. The backward peoples of Africa accept as a mat- 
ter of fact the superiority of Great Britain and France. 
But, because they do not consider that the Italians fight 



232 AN INTRODUCTION TO "WORLD POLITICS 

better than themselves or are able to make use of greater 
resources, Italy is not, in their eyes, on the same footing 
as the other leading European powers. 

By the treaty of Adis Ababa, October 26, 1896, Italy was 
compelled to renounce her claim to a protectorate and her 
right to delimit boundaries according to her own pleasure. 
As an added humiliation, she agreed to pay an indemnity 
of two million dollars in exchange for the release of the 
large number of prisoners that had been taken by the 
Abyssinian army. But in 1900 Menelek, who was never 
unreasonable in his dealings mth the powers, tacitly al- 
lowed Italy to occupy a part of the high plateau, which had 
been one of the causes of the dispute; for without this 
rectification of frontier Eritrea could not have been devel- 
oped into a colony that would be of any value to a Euro- 
pean power. 

The desire to extend into every sphere of colonial activity 
the spirit of their agreement of 1904, and to secure the tacit 
acceptance of the other powers to articles of the agreement 
where they might possibly be able to upset the compromise 
or complicate its execution, led Great Britain and France 
to negotiate a number of supplementary agreements. 
Among these was the Abyssinian convention of December 
13, 1906, to which Italy adhered. The independence and 
territorial integrity of Abyssinia were guaranteed by the 
three powers, who promised mutually to respect the sov- 
ereign rights of the emperor. No concessions were to be 
granted to one power prejudicial to the interests of the 
other two. 

No matter what internal complications might arise in 
Abyssinia, intervention was forbidden unless the three 
powers agreed to cooperate in sending troops and was 
to be limited to the protection of the legations and the 

'To have a clear idea of how Abyssinia is landlocked by French Djibouti, 
British and Italian Somaliland, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and Italian Eritrea, 
reference must be made to the map. 



ITALIAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA (1882-1911) 233 

lives and property of foreigners. The railway line from 
Djibouti ^ to Adis Ababa was to be owned by a French 
company, but equal privileges over the line and at the port 
were promised to the subjects of the other two powers. 
The railways that might be built west of Adis Ababa were 
to be constructed by Great Britain, and the line from north 
to south connecting the two Italian colonies by Italy. Great 
Britain was to be allowed a railway through Abyssinia 
from her Somaliland protectorate to the Sudan. Any of 
the contracting powers could veto any agreement made by 
one of the others with Abyssinia, should the power judge 
the agreement harmful to her interests. 

This convention, like many others that have been signed 
by particular European states concerning African and 
Asiatic political and economic matters, has neither national 
nor international sanction. Turkey, Persia, Morocco, 
Egypt, China, and Siam have had the same experiences as 
Abyssinia. Their present and their future have been ten- 
tatively disposed of without consideration for either their 
wishes or their interests. Nor have such conventions, as 
a general rule, been submitted for discussion and approval 
to the parliaments of the nations that have made them. 
The countries concerning which they have been made are 
the victims of their negative character; for the dog-in-the- 
manger attitude of the signatory powers prevents normal 
economic development. The worst feature of these con- 
ventions is the injury they do to nations that were not a 
party to them, and were not consulted in their making, nor 
sometimes even informed of their existence. Suddenly 
these outside nations have found themselves confronted 
with a de facto situation, with no legal or moral sanction, 
established contrary to their interests. 

The revenues of Eritrea have never equaled the expendi- 
tures for civil administration. Italy has had to make good 
a substantial annual deficit, and pay the charges of a con- 
siderable military force besides. Owing to the intracta- 



234 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

bility of the native sultans and the success of the Mullah 
Mohammed in defying the British in the neighboring 
colony, the Italian Somaliland protectorate has meant only 
trouble. But the Benadir colony in the south, organized 
and developed on sound lines since 1908, is a good market 
for cotton cloth and other manufactured products, and the 
Italians get commission and transportation profits out of 
a growing export cattle trade. 

After the bitter disappointment on the confines of Abys- 
sinia, Italy began to concentrate her energies on Tripoli, 
the last Ottoman possession in Africa, which Italian states- 
men had always looked upon as an eventual compensation 
for the loss of Tunisia. When the Anglo-French agree- 
ment of 1899, delimiting spheres of influence in the Sudan, 
gave the whole of the Sahara to France, including the oases 
of the desert hinterland of Tripoh, Turkey and Italy were 
greatly agitated. The possessor and the self-appointed 
heir both felt that this agreement disregarded their rights, 
and that Great Britain had compensated France for denj^- 
ing her access to the Nile Basin (this was just after the 
Fashoda incident) at their expense. 

Nowhere is the duplicity of European diplomacy more 
strikingly revealed than in the negotiations of Italy with 
France and Great Britain concerning Africa at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century. The French and British 
ambassadors at Constantinople assured the Sublime Porte 
of their affection and loyalty, and the British and French 
governments assured the Turkish ministers at London 
and Paris of their determination to uphold the doctrine of 
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But at the time these 
professions of loyalty and friendship were made they were 
placating and bribing Italy. Secret agreements were made 
with France in 1901 and Great Britain in 1902 in which the 
reversion of Tripoli was promised to Italy in return for 
her acceptance of the bases on which the British and French 
were negotiating a settlement of their rivalries, i. e., British 



ITALIAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA (1882-1911) 235 

possession of Egypt and French possession of Morocco. 
Italy also agreed to cooperate with the other two powers 
in drafting an Abyssinian convention. A policy of ''pacific 
penetration" was begun by the Italians in Tripoli, which 
might have been successful in detaching the last African 
province from the Ottoman Empire but for the Young Turk 
Revolution of 1908. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE EEOPENING OF THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 
BY ITALY (1911-1912) 

LONG before any tangible step had been taken towards 
the unification of Italy, Mazzini in exile said, ' ' North 
Africa will belong to Italy." The dream of a new Punic 
conquest was not realized. While Italy was still too weak 
to attempt to thwart their plans, Great Britain and France 
occupied Egypt and Tunisia, penetrated the Sudan and the 
Sahara, and, deciding to compromise rather than fight, di- 
vided north Africa from Morocco to Lake Chad and the 
head-waters of the Nile. All that was left outside the 
Anglo-French spheres of influence were Abyssinia, with 
strips of adjacent Red Sea and Somaliland coast, and the 
Turkish pro\ince of Tripoli.^ Italy was allowed two Afri- 
can colonies, on the Red Sea and in Somahland, but, after 
one attempt had ignominiously failed, was forced to agree 
with Great Britain and France to abstain from seeking 
again to seize Abyssinia. 

Under the Franco-Italian agreement of 1901 it was un- 
derstood that if France should ever extend her protectorate 
over Morocco, Italy would have what was left of the Otto- 
man dominions in Africa, excluding, of course, Egypt. 
Italy, on her side, recognized the validity of the Anglo- 
French partition of the Sudan, and promised not to take 
the Turkish view of the extent of the hinterland of Tripoh.^ 

^ The district of Benghazi (Barca), between Tripoli and Egypt, was placed 
under separate administration, depending directly upon the Sublime Porte, 
in 1875, forty years after Tripoli was proclaimed a vilayet (province) of the 
Ottoman Empire. Although Benghazi had nearly as many inhabitants aa 
Tripoli proper, it was still, at the time of the ItaUan conquest, commonly 
spoken of as a part of Tripoli. 

'As e.'irly as 1892 Franco and Turkey had arrived at an understanding con- 
cerning the boundary line between Tripoli and Tunisia, from the Mediter- 

236 



ITALY REOPENS NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 237 

The ** right" of Italy to Tripoli was recognized by Great 
Britain, with reservations as to the eastern frontier of the 
eventual colony, later by the international conference of 
Algeciras in 1906. These diplomatic understandings meant 
simply that the other powers would not seek concessions 
or special privileges in Tripoli and that they would not 
oppose a transfer of the vilayet from Turkey to Italy. 
There was no promise of support for any demand Eome 
might make upon Constantinople. 

The economic conquest of Tripoli was cleverly conceived 
and was faithfully tried out. Branches of the Banca di 
Roma were established at Tripoli and Benghazi, and, for 
the first time since the days of imperial Rome, a serious 
attempt was made to develop the agricultural and commer- 
cial resources of the country. The natives were encour- 
aged in every enterprise, and they became — in the vicinity 
of seaports and trading-posts, at least — dependent for their 
livelihood on the Banca di Roma. Heavily subsidized 
Italian steamship lines maintained regular and frequent 
services between Tripoli, Benghazi, and Derna, and Tunis 
and Alexandria. The admirable Itahan parcels post sys- 
tem (one of the most successful in Europe) extended its 
operations into the hinterland and captured the ostrich- 
feather trade. The Italians began to talk of making secure 
the routes to Ghadames, Ghat, and Murzuk, and of estab- 
lishing in the interior postal and banking facilities that 
these regions could never hope to have under Turkish ad- 
ministration. It was planned to begin railway construc- 
tion as soon as Italian capital was available. 

The Constantinople revolution of July, 1908, changed the 
situation. The indolent and corrupt officials of Tripoli 

ranean to the oasis of Ghadames, but they had never agreed upon the southern 
boundary of Tripoli. Turkey was not a party to the Anglo-French agreement 
of 1899. Because of the importance of keeping open a path to central 
Africa through the Senussi tribes for the furthering of his pan-Islamic propa- 
ganda, Abdul Hamid had refused to accept the French idea of a sphere of 
influence, and Turkish troops were disputing the extension of French military 
occupation up to the time of the Italian invasion of the province. 



238 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and Benghazi, whose attention had been turned from 
Itahan activities by Italian gold pieces, were replaced by 
members of the Union and Progress party. ^ The new offi- 
cials may have been no better than the old ones ; for execu- 
tive ability is not inherent in the Turkish character. But 
they were men who had passed through the fire of persecu- 
tion and suffering for love of their fatherland, and its 
renascence was the supreme thing in their lives. Their 
ambition and enthusiasm knew no bounds. 

One can imagine the feelings of the Young Turks when 
they saw what Italy was doing. It is easy enough to say 
that they should have immediately reformed the adminis- 
tration of the country and have given the Tripolitans an ef- 
ficient government. But reform does not come in a twelve- 
month, and the Young Turks had to act quickly to prevent 
the loss of Tripoli. They took the only means they had. 
Italian enterprises began to be obstructed, troops were sent 
to extend the mihtary frontiers into the Sudan, and the 
fanatical Moslem tribes of the interior were brought into 
closer touch with the Ottoman khalifate. 

Italy saw her hopes being destroyed as her colonial plans 
had been destroyed in the previous decade. Representa- 
tions at Constantinople were without effect. It was a fruit- 
less diplomatic task to persuade Young Turkey that Otto- 
man officials in Tripoh and Benghazi should be forbidden 
to hinder the onward march of Italian ''peaceable con- 
quest." The economic fabric in Tripoli, so carefully and 
patiently constructed, seemed to have been for nothing. 
By the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 
Austria-Hungary had taken a fresh step, after thirty years, 
in the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.^ No power 

^ See p. 226. 

*The earlier steps, after the formation of the concert of European powers, 
had been the creation of Greece by the protocol of 1830: the cessions of terri- 
tory to Russia in 1829 and 1878; the independence or autonomy of the Balkan 
peoples recognized in the treaty of Paris, 1856, and the treaty of Berlin, 1878, 
and special conventions arising from these treaties; the alienation of Cyprus 
in 1878, and the occupation of Egypt in 1882 by Great Britain. 



ITALY REOPENS NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 239 

had successfully protested, and the Turks had not been 
able to make reprisals. By not seizing Tripoli in the sum- 
mer of 1908 Italy let pass a golden opportunity of commit- 
ting her contemplated highway robbery without resistance 
on the part of her victim. But the crisis could not be pre- 
cipitated. Public opinion, wary of colonial enterprises 
since the terrible Abyssinian disaster, and opposed to the 
imposition of fresh taxes, had to be carefully prepared to 
sustain the government in a hostile action against Turkey. 

In January, 1911, the Italian press began to publish ar- 
ticles on Tripoli, dilating upon its economic value and vital 
importance to Italy if she were to hold her place among the 
great powers and maintain the balance of power in the 
Mediterranean. Every little Turkish persecution — and 
there were many of them — was made the subject of a front- 
page news item. The Italian people were worked up to 
believe that not only in Tripoli but elsewhere the Young 
Turks were showing contempt for Italian officials and for 
the Italian flag. A sailing-vessel was seized at Hodeida in 
the Red Sea; the incident was magnified. An American 
archaeological expedition was granted a permit to dig in 
Tripoli ; a similar permit had been refused to Italian appli- 
cants, and the newspapers pretended that the Americans 
were really prospecting for silver-mines, whose develop- 
ment would mean disaster to the great mines in Sicily. 
French troops reached the oasis of Ghadames ; the hinter- 
land of Tripoli was threatened by the extension of French 
administrative control into the eastern Sahara. At this 
moment the reopening of the Morocco question by the 
Agadir incident gave Italy the incentive and encourage- 
ment to show her hand. 

In September the press campaign against the treatment 
of Italians in Tripoli became incessant and violent. On 
September 27 the first of the series of ultimatums that 
brought all Europe into war was delivered to the Sublime 
Porte. Italy gave Turkey forty-eight hours to consent to 



240 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the occupation of Tripoli, promising on her side to main- 
tain the sultan's sovereignty under the Italian protector- 
ate and to pay into the Ottoman treasury an annual subsidy. 
Two classes were called out, General Caneva embarked 
his troops upon transports that had already been prepared, 
and the Italian fleet proceeded to Tripoli. 

Simultaneously with news of the declaration of war Con- 
stantinople learned that the first shots had already been 
fired. On September 29, without notification of hostilities 
or other warning, the Italian fleet attacked and sank Turk- 
ish torpedo-boats off Preveza at the mouth of the Adriatic. 
The next day Italian war-ships opened fire upon Tripoli. 
The forts were dismantled and the garrison driven out of 
the city. On October 5 Tripoli surrendered. The expedi- 
tionary corps disembarked on the 11th. Troops landed 
at Derna on the 18th. The next day Benghazi was captured 
at the point of the bayonet, and on the 21st Homs was 
occupied. 

The Turks and Arabs attempted to retake Tripoli on the 
23d. "WTiile the Italian soldiers were in the trenches they 
were fired upon from behind by Arabs, who were supposed 
to be non-combatants. The Italians put down this move 
from the rear mth ruthless severity, shooting and cutting 
down men, women, and children. Horror was excited 
throughout the world by the stories of this repression. De- 
tails of Italian cruelty were emphasized, and little mention 
was made of the provocation that had led to the massacre. 
The French and Enghsh newspaper campaign against 
Italy was as violent as it had been against Austria in 1908. 
The act of piracy of which Italy had been guilty was de- 
nounced, and no terms were spared in casting opprobrium 
upon the Italian army. The indignation of newspaper 
correspondents was undoubtedly sincere. But there was 
also the interested motive: the British and French press 
featured these stories to embarrass and discredit imitators 
in empire-building and colonial rivals. Italy had experi- 



ITALY EEOPENS NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 241 

enced this kind of thing before, at the time of her tragic 
Abyssinian adventure. Belgium was experiencing it in 
central Africa. 

Despite the conspiracy behind the lines, the attempt of 
the Turks and Arabs to retake Tripoli failed, and a second 
attack on October 26 proved equally unsuccessful. On the 
other hand, when the Italian army started to take the of- 
fensive on November 6, progress beyond the suburbs of 
Tripoli was found to be impossible. Without roads and 
railways the Italians could not make use of their artillery 
and their superior numbers. They were safe only as far as 
the guns of the war-ships protected them. This was true 
of each landing force. The inhabitants of Tripoli and Ben- 
ghazi, and not the small and poorly equipped Turkish 
forces, successfully resisted the Italians, and let Italy in 
for a long and costly guerrilla war which has now entered 
its second decade. 

On November 5, 1911, the Italian parliament voted the 
annexation of Tripoli and Benghazi. None of the powers 
refused to accept the fait accompli or even to protest 
against it. France and Great Britain proclaimed the neu- 
trality of Tunisia and Egypt, but were lax in its enforce- 
ment ; from both sides of the frontier volunteers and ammu- 
nition poured into Tripoli. Great Britain took advantage 
of the situation to extend the Egyptian boundary west- 
ward. Italy did not dare to contest the claims advanced 
for Egypt by Great Britain, knowing well that Anglo- 
Egyptian officials had it in their power to wreck Italian 
aspirations simply by closing their eyes to gun-running 
from the Red Sea to the Tripolitan hinterland. 

The Turks, not having control of the sea and being 
barred from sending an army across Egypt, were incapable 
of making a military move to recover the invaded provinces 
or to punish the invader. Their effort was limited to 
stirring up and organizing the Arabs. General Caneva 
went to Rome at the beginning of February, 1912, and told 



242 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the cabinet that unless the Turks consented to withdraw 
their militarj^ leaders and to cease their religious agitation 
it would take months to get a start in Africa (three months 
had already passed) and years to complete the pacification 
of the new colonies. The question was, how could Turkey 
be forced to recognize the annexation decree? There was 
neither profit nor glory in a war ^\dth Turkey. The Italian 
fleet could not be kept under steam indefinitely. The Turk- 
ish fleet did not come out to give battle, and the Italians 
were immobilized at the mouth of the Dardanelles. Italian 
commerce in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean 
was at a standstill. Upon Italian imports Turkey had 
placed a duty of one hundred per cent. Where, outside of 
Tripoli, was the pressure to be exercised? 

Italy had promised before the war started that she 
would not disturb political conditions in the Balkan pen- 
insula. The alliance with Austria-Hungary made impos- 
sible operations in the Adriatic. A naval offensive in the 
-^gean would open up international complications of a 
kind that, owing to her proximity to and economic rivalry 
with Greece, Italy was particularly anxious to avoid. In 
fact, it was for this reason that the Italian government had 
acted in harmony with Great Britain, France, and Russia 
in preventing Crete from repudiating Ottoman suzerainty. 
But public opinion in Italy was becoming restless. Were 
the Italians to burden themselves with heavy taxes by pro- 
longing the war in order to spare the feelings of the great 
powers'? Had Russia hesitated in the Caucasus? Had 
Great Britain hesitated in Egypt? Had Austria-Hungary 
hesitated in Bosnia and Herzegovina? 

Italy was at war with Turkey. She had control of the 
sea, and her government's hand was forced to risk precipi- 
tating a European war by a popular clamor that would 
not be gainsaid. In April, after six months of a war that 
was no war, Italy came to the point where she felt she must 
cast all scruples to the winds. A direct attack upon Tur- 



ITALY REOPENS NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 243 

key was decided upon, and the action was taken that 
brought Balkan ambition to a ferment and caused the kin- 
dling of the European conflagration. On April 18 Admiral 
Viala bombarded the forts at the mouth of the Dardanelles 
and the port of Vathy in Samos. Four days later Italian 
marines disembarked on the island of Stampalia. On May 
4 Ehodes was invaded, a battle occurred in the streets of 
the town, and the Turks were driven into the interior, where 
they surrendered on the 17th. The other ten islands of the 
Dodecannese, at the mouth of the ^gean Sea, were occu- 
pied. The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at its 
center, which had been arrested at San Stefano in 1878, 
began again. 

Turkey responded to the bombardment of the forts by 
closing the Dardanelles, and to the occupation of Rhodes 
by expelling Italian subjects. All Europe was disturbed 
by the holding up of more than two hundred merchant- 
vessels at Constantinople. Protests were in vain. Turkey 
reopened the straits only when assurance had been given 
to her that the attack of the Italian fleet would not be re- 
peated. Little had been gained as far as hastening peace 
was concerned. Because she knew well that any vital 
action, such as the bombardment of Saloniki or Smyrna or 
the invasion of European Turkey by way of Albania or 
Macedonia, would bring on a general European war, and 
that Italy was unwilling to assume this responsibility, 
Turkey remained passive and unresisting. She felt, 
rightly, that the Italians would fail to put an end to a 
guerrilla warfare that had the oases of the desert as a 
background. 

As early as June, Italian and Turkish representatives 
met informally at Ouchy, Switzerland, to discuss bases for 
putting an end to a war that had degenerated into an odd 
impasse. Italian commerce was suffering and Italian war- 
ships were in need of the dry-dock. Although Turkey 
could no longer prevent the conquest of Tripoli and Ben- 



244 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ghazi, Italy believed that the absence of Turkish leader- 
ship in keeping the tribes in the interior stirred up, and 
the cessation of propaganda against the occupation on the 
ground of religion, would help greatly toward the pacifica- 
tion of the provinces. A new Albanian revolt, which had 
assumed alarming proportions, made Turkey anxious for 
peace. She was uncertain also of Italy's attitude in case 
of an outbreak in the Balkans. Unofficially, Italy had let 
it be kno^\Ti that there was a limit to patience, and that a 
declaration of war against Turkey by the Balkan States 
would find Italy, despite European considerations, in alli- 
ance with them against her. In reality the Italian minis- 
ters at the Balkan courts had all along done their best to 
keep Greece and Bulgaria from taking advantage of the 
situation. This had been especially true during April and 
May, the period of Italian activity in the ^gean. On 
August 12 negotiations were begun at Ouchy between duly 
accredited plenipotentiaries, and after six weeks a draft 
of a treaty was prepared, which was accepted by Turkey 
under pressure of the new war in the Balkans. On October 
15, 1912, the treaty of Lausanne (as it is generally called) 
was signed. 

Nothing was said in the instrument about a cession of 
territory, and Turkey was not asked to recognize the Italian 
conquest. But Italy bound herself to assume Tripoli's 
share of the Ottoman public debt, and Turkey granted 
complete autonomy to Tripoli. The important clause of 
the treaty was the mutual obligation to withdraw the Tur- 
kish army from Tripoli and Benghazi and the Italian army 
from the islands of the ^'Egean. But the latter was to be 
contingent upon the former. It was easy enough for the 
Italians to quibble later about the meaning of ** Turkish." 
As long as there was opposition to the Italian pacification, 
the opponents could be called Turkish. Italy said that the 
holding of the Dodecannese was to bring pressure to bear 
upon the Turks to jirevent sending aid and encouragement 



ITALY REOPENS NEAE EASTERN QUESTION 245 

to the Tripolitans. As long as any Arab held the field 
against the Italian army, it was claimed that Turkey had 
not fulfilled her part of the obligation. At the moment of 
signing the treaty Turkey was willing to have the Italians 
stay in the southern islands of the ^gean, trusting to for- 
tune to get them out later. For otherwise the Dodecannese 
would have fallen into the hands of the Greeks at the out- 
break of the Balkan War and would have been irrevocably 
lost. 

The annexation of Tripoli did not materially affect the 
development of international politics in Africa. Great 
Britain and France had already agreed upon their spheres 
of influence, and the new Italian possessions had no un- 
settled boundaries as far as the neighbors were concerned. 
Thus there was no cause for friction among the powers 
interested in north Africa, and no modification of policies 
was demanded. In Europe, however, the attack of Italy 
upon Turkey led directly to the disruption of the Ottoman 
Empire. It raised among the powers the questions they 
had agreed not to discuss. When it was discovered that 
Turkey was being driven by her former subjects from her 
European provinces and from the ^gean islands, there 
arose what statesmen had feared — a series of differences 
that proved impossible of peaceful solution. 



CHAPTER XXI 

INTRIGUES OF THE GREAT POWERS IN THE BALKANS 
(1903-1912) 

THE first manifesto of the Young Turks against the 
absolutist regime was made in June, 1900, and was fol- 
lowed by a second stronger demand for reforms a year 
later. The persecution of Armenians, however, continued, 
and to the count against Abdul Hamid were added massa- 
cres and a state of anarchy that seemed to have been delib- 
erately encouraged in European Turkey. In November, 
1901, the sultan received a warning that caused him to be 
more amenable to the suggestions of the powers. In the 
course of a dispute over claims and French religious orders, 
France had broken off diplomatic relations with Turkey, 
and had not hesitated to go to the length of making a naval 
demonstration in the ^gean Sea and seizing the island 
of Mytilene in order to bring the Sublime Porte to terms. 
From no other power did Turkey receive encouragement 
to reject the French ultimatum. Germany was in the midst 
of an industrial depression and Great Britain had not yet 
reached the end of the Boer War. In 1902 Great Britain, 
France, Russia, and Italy joined to insist upon the with- 
drawal of the Ottoman garrison from Crete, and in De- 
cember of the same year all six of the powers told Abdul 
Hamid that the administration of Macedonia must be 
radically improved. 

Abdul Hamid realized that while he could ignore the 
notes of the powers protesting against the Armenian mas- 
sacres, as he had always done, since only humanitarian 
interests were involved, he did not hold the same trump 
cards as formerly in regard to other questions. Because 

246 



THE POWERS IN THE BALKANS (1903-1912) 247 

Eussia and France were now allies, Russia no longer 
backed him in refusing to recognize the right of France to 
protect the Catholics of the Ottoman Empire. Great 
Britain, too, was drifting into an understanding with 
France that would logically be followed by an understand- 
ing with Russia ; while Germany, who was replacing Great 
Britain as Turkey's friend and defender, did not possess 
the naval strength or the opportunities to stir up colonial 
difficulties that had made it a life-saving pastime for the 
master of Yildiz Kiosk to set off Great Britain against 
Russia and France. 

Most important of all, the preoccupations of Russia in 
the Far East had brought together the Romanoff czar and 
the Hapsburg emperor in a definite agreement concern- 
ing Balkan affairs. At first, when an Albanian uprising 
was added to the Macedonian revolt to throw all European 
Turkey into confusion and bloodshed, Vienna and Petro- 
grad united, on February 21, 1903, to proclaim Austro- 
Russian hegemony over the vilayets of Saloniki, Monastir, 
and Kossovo. This plan was impossible of realization, 
not only because of its inherent impracticability, but also 
because of the opposition of the other powers. It was too 
much to expect either that Austro-Hungarians and Rus- 
sians would be able to work together harmoniously in the 
establishment of virtual condominium over the three prov- 
inces, or that the other four powers could agree to let them 
have an opportunity to divide the Balkans into spheres of 
influence. Germany made no move on one side or the other 
of the Macedonian question, just as in the Cretan question 
she had not supported Greeks, Cretans, Turks, or the 
powers. Great Britain and France recognized the special 
interests of Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Balkans, 
and were willing that these two powers should be the *' man- 
datories" of Europe in suggesting and supervising the re- 
forms, but they wanted a part in their execution. Italy 
insisted that Albania be excluded from the regions in which 



248 ^AN INTRODUCTION T.O WORLD POLITICS 

Austria-Hungary and Russia were to be given a privileged 
position. A glance at the map shows the reason why. 

Czar Nicholas and Emperor Franz Josef met at Murz- 
steg, and agreed upon a scheme of reform, called the Miirz- 
steg program, which was approved by Great Britain, 
France, and Italy. They recommended that the Ottoman 
governor, especially appointed for the purpose of putting 
into execution reforms,^ should be assisted by a Russian 
and an Austrian, and that a gendarmerie, recruited in 
Macedonia, should be organized under the command of a 
foreign general and a staff of foreign officers. Each of the 
five powers was to have supervision of a district. This 
last provision indicated the fatal weakness of the scheme. 
It was a compromise between the powers, dictated by con- 
siderations that had nothing to do with the problem the 
Miirzsteg program was supposed to solve, and thus it be- 
came merely another chapter of failure in the story of 
European diplomacy in the Near East. 

From the moment that Abdul Hamid found himself com- 
pelled to accept the policing of Macedonia by European 
officers, he set to work to make their task impossible. An 
agreement was soon reached between Hilmi Pasha, the 
Ottoman governor, and Austro-Hungarian agents in Mace- 
donia. AVhere the Bulgarians were weak the Turkish offi- 
cials and the Austrian emissaries encouraged the Bulgarian 
propaganda. Where the Greeks were weak, Hellenic bands 
were allowed immunity. Where the Serbians were weak, 
the Serbian propaganda made great strides with the con- 
nivance of the Turkish government. The European gen- 
darmerie was powerless to struggle against Ottoman, Aus- 
tro-Hungarian, and Balkan intrigues. The Turks wanted 
to keep Macedonia, the Balkan States wanted to wrest it 

*In the autumn of 1902 Abdul Hamid, thinking to anticipate the demands of 
the powers, elaborated his own program of reforms, and sent to Saloniki 
Hilmi Pasha, one of his most astute servants, who was to rel'stablish order in 
Macedonia "by assuring security of life and property and impartial justice 
to all elements of the population. ' ' 



BALKAN WAR AGAINST TURKEY (1912-1913) 255 

nite agreement concerning territorial settlements was be- 
tween Bulgaria and Serbia ; but even in the Serbo-Bulgarian 
treaty a large and important zone was left to arbitration. 
It was the best that could be done. The Balkan statesmen 
decided that it was wise to defer discussion, remembering 
that 

**The man that once did sell the lion's skin 
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him." 

None of them, in fact, believed that the lion could be killed, 
and they all hoped to avoid war. But Turkey acted so tact- 
lessly and stubbornly in the summer of 1912 that public 
sentiment in the four countries compelled the carrying out 
of plans that had been made only tentatively and for the 
purpose of exercising diplomatic pressure. 

Massacres at Ishtib and Kotchana inflamed the Serbians 
and Bulgarians. The perennial Albanian uprising, which 
the Turks tried to render impotent by arousing religious 
fanaticism, caused persecutions of Greeks, Montenegrins, 
and Serbians.^ All the Christians of European Turkey 
were goaded to desperation by the colonization in their 
midst of refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina ^ and by 
the fact and methods of conscription for the Ottoman 
army. The demand for intervention on behalf of Mace- 
donian and Epirote Christians became irresistible when the 
people realized that their statesmen had actually worked 
out a plan for military cooperation. Had the ministries re- 

^ The Albanian insurgents pillaged the frontier towns of Montenegro and 
the districts of western Macedonia, which they had invaded with the object 
of driving back the Turks. In September they were in virtual possession of 
Uskub, an important city on the Vardar Eiver, through which passed the rail- 
way from Nish to Saloniki. The idea of a strong and independent Albania 
was as alarming to the Montenegrins and the Serbians as its alternative — 
success of the Young Turks in reestablishing e'ffective control of the European 
-vilayets west of the Vardar. 

^ Like the Boers at the advance of the English, the fanatical elements of the 
Mohammedan population were in the habit of "trekking" from the provinces 
that passed under Christian control. The muliadjirs (refugees) were naturally 
filled with hatred for Christians and believed that where Mohammedanism still 
prevailed they had the right to oust the Christian population, taking their 
lands and homes and possessions. 



256 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

mained advocates of peace, they would have fallen. The 
only hope for preserving peace would have been a concilia- 
tory attitude on the part of Turkey. When the great 
powers presented their joint note on October 8, the oppor- 
tunity for mediation had passed.^ 

Montenegro responded to the overtures of the powers 
by declaring war immediately. After five days, which, in 
view of public opinion, was as long as they dared wait, the 
Balkan premiers notified the powers that their offer to take 
in hand Macedonian reforms was unacceptable. The next 
day, October 14, Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria issued an 
ultimatum that made the world gasp. 

Turkey was given forty-eight hours to agree to (1) the 
autonomy of the European provinces under Christian gov- 
ernors; (2) the occupation of the provinces by the allied 
armies while the reforms were being applied; (3) the pay- 
ment of an indemnity for the expenses of mobilization; (4) 
immediate demobilization of the Ottoman army; and (5) 
a pledge that the reforms would be effected within six 
months. The Ottoman ministers at Belgrade and Sofia re- 
fused to transmit the ultimatum. The minister at Athens 
tried to detach the Greeks from the alliance by agreeing 
to recognize the annexation of Crete to Greece and prom- 
ising an autonomous government for some of the ^^gean 
islands. But the Montenegrins had been fighting for a 
week and had scored initial successes. On the 15th hos- 
tilities began on the Serbian frontier. The Bulgarian and 
Greek armies were being assembled for the invasion of 
Thrace and Macedonia. Three days later Turkey declared 
war on Bulgaria and Serbia, though she still cherished the 
hope of buying the neutrality of Greece. As soon, how- 
ever, as Greece learned of the action of the Sublime Porte 
in regard to Serbia and Bulgaria, the Ottoman minister in 
Athens was handed his passports. 

The Bulgarians crossed the Turkish frontier on October 

^ For the text of this note see p. 252. 



BALKAN WAR AGAINST TURKEY (1912-1913) 25T 

19. Within two weeks they had invested Adrianople, had 
routed the Turks at Kirk Kihsse and Lule Burgas (this 
battle lasted three days and was fought by 350,000 com- 
batant troops, almost evenly divided), and were pursuing 
the Turks to the gates of Constantinople. During the same 
fortnight the Ottoman forces in Macedonia were as de- 
cisively defeated by the Serbians at Kumanovo on October 
22 and by the Greeks at Yanitza on November 3. During 
November the Turkish armies were bottled up in Constan- 
tinople, Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari, with no hope of 
making successful sorties. Except at Constantinople, they 
were besieged and could hope for neither reinforcements 
nor food supplies. The Greek fleet was master of the 
^gean Sea, and held the Turkish navy blocked in the 
Dardanelles. All the ^gean islands, aside from those oc- 
cupied by Italy, were in the hands of the Greeks.^ There 
had been less than six weeks of fighting. The Balkan allies 
had swept from the field all the Turkish forces in Europe 
and the military prestige of Turkey had received a mortal 
blow. 

The conditions of the armistice, signed on December 3, 
were an acknowledgment of the debacle of Turkish military 
power in Europe. The most humiliating stipulation was 
that the Bulgarian army outside Constantinople should be 
revictualed by the railway which passed under the guns 
of Adrianople, while that fortress remained without food. 
By agreement with her allies, Greece refused to sign the 
armistice, but was allowed to be represented at the peace 
conference. The allies felt that the state of war on sea 
must continue, to prevent Turkey during the armistice 
from bringing to Europe the army corps of Syria, Meso- 
potamia, and Arabia; and Greece, in particular, was de- 
termined to run no risk in connection with the l"Egean 
islands. The plenipotentiaries were to meet in London. 

* At Chios the Turkish garrison retired to the mountainous center of the 
island and was able to hold out until January 3. 



258 AN INTRODUCTION TO TTOELD POLITICS 

The delegates of the Balkan States insisted upon the 
surrender of Adrianople and the other fortresses that 
were still holding out, and the cession to the allies of the. 
Ottoman territories in Europe beyond a line running from 
Enos on the ^gean Sea, at the mouth of the Maritza River, 
to Midia on the Black Sea, and of all the ^gean islands. 
After a vain attempt to save something from the wreck 
by dividing the allies and securing the intervention of the 
powers, the Turkish government decided to yield. A tele- 
gram was sent to London, authorizing the Turkish commis- 
sioners to sign the preliminaries of a peace that would 
mean the ehmination of Turkey from Europe, with the 
exception of a strip of coast along the Dardanelles, the 
Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus. But the next day, 
January 22, 1913, a coup d'etat at Constantinople, engi- 
neered by Enver Bey, a hero of the revolution of 1908,^ 
overthrew the government. Nazim Pasha, minister of war 
and generalissimo of the Ottoman army, was assassinated, 
and Kiamil Pasha, the grand vizier, was exiled. The new 
government, headed by General Mahmud Shevket Pasha, 
revoked the authorization to sign peace on the terms laid 
down by the allies. 

On January 29 the alhes denounced the armistice and 
hostilities reopened. From a military point of view, the 
only hope of the Turks lay in advancing from Constanti- 
nople or Gallipoli to the relief of Adrianople. There was 
much talk of a great offensive movement, but no serious 
attempt was made against the army besieging Constanti- 
nople, while an attack upon the Bulgarians at Bulair, where 
the Gallipoli peninsula joins the mainland, ended disas- 

* After the revolution Enver Bey was given the post of military attach^ at 
Berlin. When Italy att.ncked Turkey, he returned and went to organize the 
resistance in Tripoli. The misfortunes of the opening weeks of the Balkan 
War gave him the opportunity to come to the front as leader of the jingo and 
extreme nationalist element of the Young Turk party. Mahmud Shevket, v'' m 
he made premier through his coup d'etat, was, like himself, an advocate of an 
alliance with Germany. 



BALKAN WAR AGAINST TURKEY (1912-1913) 259 

trously. The Greeks captured Janina on March 5, and the 
Bulgarians and Serbians took Adrianople by assault on 
March 24 and 25. Scutari in Albania surrendered to the 
Montenegrins on April 22. In Europe the Ottoman flag had 
ceased to wave, except at Constantinople and Gallipoli. 
The war was over, whether the Young Turks would have 
it so or not. 

The great powers were willing to act as mediators. But 
the Turks refused to discuss the terms of peace until after 
the fall of Janina and Adrianople, and the Balkan States 
rejected the demand of the powers that the status and 
frontiers of Albania and the disposal of the ^gean islands 
be left to them. They wanted to know what the powers 
had in mind in regard to the Albanian frontiers, and they 
did not see why the powers should claim any rights in the 
-^gean islands. The powers also, in the interests of 
holders of Turkish bonds, insisted that an indemnity be 
waived and that the allies assume a portion of the Ottoman 
debt, as Italy had done in the treaty of Lausanne, ad- 
judged on the basis of the size and resources of the terri- 
tories annexed by each of them. 

Notes were exchanged among the chancelleries until 
April 20, when the Balkan States finally agreed to accept 
mediation of the powers. After all, the victory had been 
far more complete than they expected, and, although they 
felt that the interference of the powers would inevitably 
lead to difficulties, they could not afford to hold out longer. 
Differences among themselves were threatening to destroy 
the united diplomatic front which till now they had been 
able to maintain with as much success as their military 
front. Negotiations were resumed in London on May 20, 
and ten days later the peace preliminaries were signed. 
The sultan of Turkey ceded to the sovereigns of the allied 
states his dominions in Europe beyond the Enos-Midia line, 
and the island of Crete. The future of the other islands 



260 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

of the JSigean Sea was left to the great powers, and to them 
also was intrusted the task of creating an Albanian state 
and determining its frontiers. 

These terms were almost identical with those rejected 
by the Young Turks in January. The war had been re- 
newed in the hope that the allies would turn their arms 
against each other. This did happen, but not until Turkey 
had been disposed of. 



TRIPLE ENTENTE VS. CENTRAL EMPIRES (1914) 273 

many was unwilling to go to war with France over Morocco 
as there was a prospect of Great Britain aiding France. 
One of Germany's allies, Austria-Hungary, did not have 
any personal interest in a Germanic solution of the Moroc- 
can question, while Germany, because of her Drang nach 
Osten, did have a powerful reason for favoring the Austro- 
Hungarian solution of the question of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina. And her other ally, Italy, was bound by treaty 
not to oppose the extension of the French protectorate over 
Morocco, this promise having been obtained by France in 
return for the latter 's acknowledgment of Italy's right to 
Tripoli.^ Neither crisis had at stake enough of vital im- 
portance for any of the powers to assume the responsibility 
of precipitating a European war. 

Between 1911 and 1914 Balkan developments had become 
increasingly alarming for Austria-Hungary. Serbia, vic- 
torious in two wars, had grown amazingly in strength and 
prestige. A pan-Serbian secret society, the Narodny 
Obrana, was carrying on an active separatist propaganda, 
not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Dalmatia, 
Croatia, and Istria. In these provinces of the Dual Mon- 
archy most of the inhabitants spoke Serbian and belonged 
to the same south Slavic stock as the inhabitants of free 
Serbia. Disliking the Austrians and hating the Hun- 
garians, who had long been ruling them as a subject race, 
the populations of these regions were worked upon by the 
propagandists to look forward to the creation of a national 
life, which would be possible only by the union of all the 
Serbian-speaking peoples. Owing to the numbers and the 
geographical position of the south Slavs, it was evident 
that the success of the Narodny Obrana would mean the 
disruption of the Hapsburg empire and the interposition of 
a barrier between Austrians and Hungarians and the sea. 

German statesmen and German public opinion believed 
that the maintenance of the Hapsburg empire, with an out- 

^ Sea pp. 234, 236. 



274 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

let to the Mediterranean at Trieste and Fiume and a foot- 
hold in the Balkan peninsula suflQcient for the protection of 
its tenure on the Adriatic coast, was vital to the security 
and prosperity of the German Empire. France and Russia 
were offensive and defensive allies; Great Britain pos- 
sessed the supremacy of the sea; Italy was an uncertain 
friend; therefore it seemed to the Germans that complete 
encirclement could be avoided only by the preservation of 
the Dual Monarchy. It was an economic as well as a mili- 
tary necessity for Germany that the Dual Monarchy con- 
tinue to exist without diminution of territory. Germany's 
lines of communication with the Mediterranean and Con- 
stantinople passed through Vienna and Budapest. The 
route to Turkey was becoming as important for the Ger- 
mans as the route to India had long been for the British; 
and the Germans had made up their minds that any effort 
to undermine Austria-Hungary would have to be checked, 
even if it meant war. 

On June 25, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II inspected the Brit- 
ish fleet, which was at Kiel for the celebration of the 
reopening of the canal. Three days later the Archduke 
Franz Ferdinand and his wife, who were visiting Serajevo, 
capital of Bosnia, were assassinated by a member of the 
Narodny Obrana. The Austro-Hungarian government de- 
cided to take measures to put an end to pan-Serbian propa- 
ganda, using the assassination of the heir to the Hapsburg 
throne as the occasion and justification for bringing pres- 
sure to bear upon Serbia to discountenance the nationalist 
agitation in the Serbian-speaking provinces of the Dual 
Monarchy. 

It was recalled that the Serbian minister at Vienna had 
made, on March 31, 1909, the following formal declaration 
to the Austro-Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs : 

''Serbia declares that she is not affected in her rights by 
the situation established in Bosnia, and that she will there- 
fore adapt herself to the decisions at which the powers are 



TRIPLE ENTENTE VS. CENTRAL EMPIRES (1914) 275 

going to arrive in reference to article 25 of the treaty of 
Berlin. Following the advice of the powers, Serbia binds 
herself to cease the attitude of protest and resistance which 
she has assumed since last October, relative to the annexa- 
tion, and she binds herself further to change the trend of 
her present policy towards Austria-Hungary, and, in the 
future, to live with the latter in friendly and neighborly 
relations. ' ' 

The press and public opinion in Austria-Hungary, dur- 
ing the four weeks following the Serajevo assassination, 
claimed that Serbia had broken this promise, and that the 
unrest in Bosnia, of which the murder of the archduke was 
the culmination, was due to the instigation of the olBficials 
of the Narodny Obrana and to secret agents, whose head- 
quarters were at Belgrade and whose activities the Serbian 
government in effect encouraged because it had not pre- 
vented them. But not until the evening of July 23 did 
Europe realize that Austria-Hungary, with Germany be- 
hind her, was determined to impose upon Serbia conditions 
that Russia would not tolerate. 

The Austro-Hungarian ultimatum of July 23 accused 
Serbia of having failed to fulfil the promise made in the 
declaration of March 31, 1909, and of permitting the pan- 
Serbian propaganda to be disseminated in the newspapers 
and public schools of the kingdom. The assassination of 
the archduke was stated to be the direct result of the 
Serbian government's violation of its promise, and it was 
claimed that proof had been found of the complicity of two 
Serbians, one an army officer and the other a functionary 
who belonged to the Narodny Obrana. The assassins, it 
was said, had received their arms and bombs from these 
two men and had been knowingly allowed by the Serbian 
authorities to cross the Bosnian frontier. The Austro- 
Hungarian government therefore found itself compelled to 
demand of the Serbian government the formal condemna- 
tion of the propaganda of the Narodny Obrana, which was 
dangerous to the existence of the Dual Monarchy, because 



276 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

its object was to detach from Austria-Hungary large parts 
of her territory and to attach them to Serbia. The Serbian 
government was given forty-eight hours in which to agree 
to disavow the pan-Serbian nationalist movement and to 
suppress the propagandists in Serbian territory by taking 
drastic measures, which were outlined in detail in the 
ultimatum. 

Owing to pressure from Russia and France, neither of 
whom was prepared for war, Serbia accepted in principle 
the terms of the ultimatum, and promised, if her reserva- 
tions to certain specific demands were unsatisfactory, to 
place her case in the hands of the Hague tribunal. This 
answer was taken by the Serbian premier in person to the 
Austro-Hungarian minister before the termination of the 
forty-eight hours. Without referring the response to his 
government, the minister, acting on previous instructions 
that no answer other than an unqualified acceptance in 
every particular of the ultimatum would be admissible, 
replied that the response was not satisfactory and asked 
for his passports. On the morning of July 28 Austria- 
Hungary formally declared war, and the same evening 
the bombardment of Belgrade was begun. 

Between July 23 and August 4 European diplomacy 
exerted itself to the utmost to prevent a general war. Many 
volumes have been written giving in detail the story of the 
pourparlers and exchanges of despatches among the chan- 
celleries during the fateful ''twelve days." Naturally, as 
the participants have wanted to exculpate themselves and 
as the governments have sought to throw the responsibility 
for the war upon one another, it is impossible, until the 
archives are opened, for the historian to judge from the 
evidence.^ AMiatever story may be revealed by a com- 

* Most of the German, Austro-Hunparian, and Russian official correspondence 
has been published, because of the complete collapse of those three governments 
and the conunnnication of their archives to unauthorized porsons. But the 
French and British governments have given out onlv selected documents from 
their archives, which are in the nature of briefs rather than of evidence. 



TRIPLE ENTENTE VS. CENTRAL EMPIRES (1914) 277 

plete publication of the diplomatic correspondence and 
conversations, however, the student who approaches the 
problem of the responsibility for the World War from the 
point of view of world politics will regard the 'Hwelve 
days" as of minor importance. The assassination at 
Serajevo furnished an occasion for the outbreak of a con- 
flict that had long been threatening between Austria-Hun- 
gary and Eussia. Both of these powers considered that 
the ascendancy of the other in the Balkans meant its own 
political disintegration and economic stagnation. And the 
other powers were committed to the support of the two 
potential belligerents by a long chain of events and cir- 
cumstances that had to do primarily with their overseas 
expansion. 

International relations are, of course, affected by numer- 
ous considerations, and it is impossible to ignore the many 
trouble-breeding causes of conflict due to the direct rela- 
tions of the powers as neighbors in Europe. But it may 
be fairly argued that none of these sources of friction in 
themselves would have led to a European conflagration. 
During the century preceding the war of 1914 the wars 
among the powers were limited in scope and objective. 
Both the commitments, due to treaties or understandings, 
and the incentives were lacking to array all the powers, on 
opposing sides, in a quarrel between one of them and a 
small state or between two of them. Even as late as 1878, 
when Great Britain compelled Eussia to bring the treaty 
of San Stef ano before an international conference for revi- 
sion, there was no danger of a general European war. 
But the changes that had occurred between 1878 and 1914 
made it impossible for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia 
without a resultant Armageddon. 

These changes can be summarized under two heads: 
those that affected the international position of each power 
separately and led to the alinement of 1914 and to the later 
intervention of other states; and those that had trans- 



278 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

formed war from a conflict between armed forces of limited 
numbers to a lif e-and-death struggle between peoples. 

When Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia she mobilized 
against Russia. Russia's counter-mobilization to defend 
Serbia was answered by the general mobilization of Ger- 
many, whose armies threatened both Russia and France. 
Because France refused to assure Germany that she would 
stand by and allow Russia to be attacked by Germany, 
Germany invaded France by way of Belgium, a country 
whose neutrality she was bound by treaty to respect. Great 
Britain thereupon declared war upon Germany. Between 
July 28 and August 4 the Austro-Serbian hostilities in- 
volved Russia, France, Great Britain, and Belgium in a 
war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Montenegro 
entered the lists in defense of Serbia, and within two 
months Turkey intervened on the side of the central powers. 
In the meantime, Japan attacked Germany in the Far East. 
In 1915 Italy joined the entente powers and Bulgaria the 
central powers. In 1916 Portugal and Rumania declared 
war on the central powers, and in 1917 the intervention of 
the United States, Greece, China, Siam, Liberia, and most 
of the Latin-American republics made the combination 
against the central empires, Turkey, and Bulgaria vir- 
tually a world coalition. 

Of the reasons for the entry of the later combatants 
we shall speak elsewhere.^ The principal motives that 
brought in the belligerents of 1914 were: Austria-Hun- 
gary and Russia — opposition to and support of the pan- 
Slavic movement; Germany — the desire to maintain con- 
trol of the route to the Ottoman Empire and to break 
France and Russia before they became too strong for her ; 
France — national security, which was believed to be de- 
pendent upon the preservation of a strong Russia; Great 
Britain — the determination to prevent a continental power 
from securing the hegemony of Europe and challenging 

»See pp. 290-292, 294, 297, 301-304, 316-317, 361-3C3, 37(5-380. 



TEIPLE ENTENTE VS. CENTRAL EMPIRES (1914) 279 

British sea power; Japan — the opportunity of eliminat- 
ing another European power in the Far East ; Montenegro 
— the knowledge that her independence would disappear 
with Serbia's; Belgium and Serbia — resistance to aggres- 
sion, but, coupled with it, the knowledge that if a war 
among the great powers resulted in the triumph of the 
central empires Belgium would fall under German and 
Serbia under Austro-Hungarian domination; and Turkey 
— the fear of losing Constantinople and other territory if 
the group of powers including Russia won the war. 

Immediately after the war had begun, however, it was 
necessary for statesmen to call upon their peoples to fight 
for ideals. The economic reasons and political combina- 
tions that have pitted nations against one another are ig- 
nored when the cataclysm they have produced arrives. We 
must be careful to distinguish between the underlying mo- 
tives of wars, which are always economic, and the more 
noble objects men have before their eyes when they are 
actually fighting. When one's country is invaded, what- 
ever may have been the reason for the invasion, one fights 
in its defense. The invading armies believe that if they 
were not in the enemy's country the enemy would be in 
theirs. Where those who interve.ne are unable to invoke 
the instinct of self-preservation, they are spurred to sacri- 
fice by the thought that they are defending the weak against 
^he strong or avenging the victims of the enemy's blood- 
lust. When we think how unreservedly the peoples of 
warring nations sacrifice themselves, we realize how large 
a part idealism plays in the conduct of wars. But this fact 
makes only the more important the critical analysis of the 
forces and influences that make inevitable conflicts among 
nations. 

When we examine these motives we see that they have 
to do with the primal instincts that are the causes of all 
wars — self-defense and self-aggrandizement; and that, 
when they are called into play, each in turn is precedent 



280 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and consequent. Individually, in the history of Europe, 
the belligerents had heretofore engaged in wars with each 
other, and sometimes in combinations. But the influences 
that had provoked duels or that had led to temporary coali- 
tions were primarily European in character and had to do 
with real or fancied protection of interests arising from 
direct relations as neighbors. In the war of 1914 both 
groups of belligerents had formed their alliances because 
of changes in their relations as world powers, and both 
were tempted to engage in the most horrible and costly of 
all wars through a concatenation of extra-European events. 
The European nations had reached a stage of industrial 
evolution, coupled with a standard of living, that led them 
to believe that they were dependent upon maintaining and 
increasing their world markets. Almost insensibly their 
relations with one another had been shaped and had become 
fixed by considerations of world politics. 

Propaganda had become an indispensable agent to gov- 
ernments in the conduct of international relations; for 
along with universal obligatory miUtary service and in- 
creased taxes to pay for armaments had come universal 
suffrage. The ultimate control of foreign policy, there- 
fore, was in the hands of those who contributed financially 
and who might at any time be called upon to risk their lives. 
Yet international obligations were contracted by a few in 
the name of the people, who were ignorant of the details 
and principles of the policies of their governments. The 
object of propaganda was twofold : to make the people be- 
lieve that their security and prosperity depended upon an 
aggressive foreign pohcy, which defended the country's 
"interests" throughout the world; and to arouse a senti- 
ment of suspicion and hatred against any nation that might 
happen to become a colonial and commercial competitor. 
Enemies were changed to friends and friends to enemies 
according to the exigencies of world politics. The im- 
perialists of Germany led the people to believe that Ger- 



TRIPLE ENTENTE VS. CENTRAL EMPIRES (1914) 281 

many was disinherited and surrounded by enemies, and 
that backing Austria-Hungary was the only way of salva- 
tion. In Great Britain, on the other hand, the people were 
worked upon to substitute within a decade Germany for 
Russia and France as the formidable potential disturber of 
world peace. 

Between France and Germany there was undoubtedly a 
feeling of animosity that could be traced to the war of 
1870. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was an open 
wound, and the Franco-Russian alliance made Germany 
nervous in the possession of her plunder. But too little 
importance is given the Moroccan question as a factor in 
reviving and intensifying the hatred between the two coun- 
tries when the generation that had fought over the Rhine 
provinces was disappearing. It must not be forgotten that 
Austria had been humiliated and robbed by Prussia as 
much as France had been, that the last Austro-Prussian 
War had taken place only four years before the Franco- 
Prussian War, and that France had been thwarted in her 
ambitions and affronted by British imperialism three times 
since the Franco-Prussian War. The grouping of the 
powers in 1914 can not be explained by traditional interests 
or affinities or by rancors, but simply by the evolution of 
world policies. 

With the exception of Germany, who felt that the mo- 
ment was propitious, none of the powers wanted war in 
the summer of 1914. Had Germany advised restraint, 
Austria-Hungary would not have refused to accept the 
Serbian response to her ultimatum. Had Germany wanted 
to avoid the risk of British intervention, she would not 
have invaded Belgium. Germany risked the test of the 
solidity of the Franco-Russian and Anglo-Japanese alli- 
ances and of the genuineness of the Anglo-French Entente, 
She was willing, also, to discount any weakness in her ally's 
military power resulting from the disaffection of subject 
Hapsburg peoples. The uncertainty of Italy's attitude 



282 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

did not seem to trouble her. She went into the war with 
her eyes open, confident of victory. 

But the initial whirlwind campaign against France mis- 
carried because of the stubborn fighting of the Belgians and 
the loss of the first battle of the Marne. During the fate- 
ful month of August, while invading France, Germany was 
called upon to make a tremendous military effort to stem 
the Eussian invasion of east Prussia. The hopes of a 
speedy and easy victory vanished before the armies had 
been six weeks in the field. On both fronts the Germans 
found themselves forced to dig themselves in, and to face 
what promised to be a long and exhausting struggle. 

The Entente allies were able to oppose a solid diplomatic 
front, also, to Germany. On September 5, 1914, Great Brit- 
ain, France, and Russia signed an agreement, known as 
the ''pact of London," binding themselves not to conclude 
peace separately with Germany; and to this agreement 
Japan affixed her signature on October 19, 1915, and Italy 
on December 1, 1915. 



CHAPTER XXV 

ITALY'S ENTEANCE INTO THE TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 

DURING the third quarter of the nineteenth century — ■ 
the period between the treaty of Paris (1856) and 
the treaty of Berlin (1878) — Prussia, Austria, and Sar- 
dinia were replaced by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and 
Italy as the powers of central Europe. Both Germans and 
Italians had achieved their national unity at the expense 
of the Hapsburg empire, and the war of 1866, in which 
they were allies against Austria, was an essential step in 
their unification. But economic considerations gradually 
led to an alliance with Austria-Hungary, which was con- 
cluded in 1882. German and Italian statesmen continued 
for more than a generation to believe that the Triple Alli- 
ance was advantageous to the interests of their countries, 
and it was still in force when the war of 1914 broke out. 

As far as Italy was concerned, the vulnerable points in 
the alliance were: (1) Austria-Hungary possessed ''unre- 
deemed" portions of the Italian ''motherland"; (2) Italy 
could not feel safe without the control of the Adriatic Sea, 
and yet this was Austria-Hungary's only outlet; (3) be- 
cause of Great Britain's control of the Mediterranean Sea, 
it was impossible for Italy to be relied upon to participate 
in any war without the consent of the British; (4) in the 
competition for overseas markets, Italy's allies were not 
in a position to bargain with her and offer her "compen- 
sations," as were the other powers; and (5) Germany had 
no common frontier with Italy. Had any one of these 
weak points in the alliance been lacking, the central em- 
pires might have been able to prevent the orientation of 
Italy towards their enemies and the intervention of Italy 

283 



284 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

against them. But taken together they proved too great 
a handicap for German diplomacy to overcome when Italy 
was faced with the alternatives of neutrality or participa- 
tion in the World War. 

Irredentism is a term originally used to denote the doc- 
trine of the agitators for Italian unification, who taught 
that the people of the Italian peninsula would achieve their 
goal of becoming a nation only when those who spoke Ital- 
ian were united under one government. It was the Latin 
version of the old saying that '' where there are Hellenes, 
there is Hellas," and it was soon developed far beyond just 
ethnological claims. Where the irredentists were con- 
fronted with alien majorities in coveted territories, his- 
torical claims and the argument of strategic necessity were 
advanced. 

There were terre irredente (unredeemed lands) on the 
other side of virtually every frontier in Europe ; and, while 
force still remained the supreme argum.ent in establishing 
a boundary, the aggressive intentions of the powers to 
despoil one another were usually disguised by the idealism 
of irredentism. Encouragement of separatist movements 
in neighboring countries was carried on in time of peace; 
irredentism was a powerful instrument in the hands of 
statesmen not only to bring pressure to bear in diplo- 
matic negotiations, but also to foster and intensify the 
war spirit among the common people; and, after wars, 
annexation of territories of the vanquished state was al- 
ways justified by the plea of '^redeeming enslaved brothers 
of blood," taking back provinces that had formerly be- 
longed to the victors, or establishing historic or strategic 
frontiers. 

Although the irredentist ideal was in many cases a 
reasonable and legitimate ambition, to statesmen it be- 
came a cloak for concealing the real objects of diplo- 
macy — economic advantages and militaiy guaranties. 
Irredentism was a good weapon of attack. But it became 



ITALY'S ENTRANCE INTO TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 285 

inextricably involved with the aspirations of nationalism 
and the obligations of patriotism, and therefore was likely 
to get beyond the control of those who wanted to use it in 
moderation. This happened in Italy, where a generation 
of premiers and ministers of foreign affairs had kept in 
check the irredentist demands of the Italian nationalists. 

Italy's terre irredente were Nice, Savoy, Corsica, and 
Tunisia, held by France; Malta, held by Great Britain; 
three cantons of Switzerland; the southern half of the 
Austrian Tyrol; and all the parts of the Adriatic littoral 
held by Austria, Hungary, Montenegro, and Albania. The 
more radical irredentists recalled that medieval Italy had 
enjoyed a privileged position in the commerce of the east- 
ern Mediterranean. The Italian city-states ruled in the 
islands and the ports of the ^gean Sea, and there were 
self-governing colonies in Constantinople and other ports 
of the Byzantine Empire. It was contended that the pros- 
perity and security of the people inhabiting the Italian 
peninsula depended as much in the twentieth century as in 
the days of imperial Rome and the medieval republics 
upon an overlordship in all Mediterranean lands east of 
Sicily. 

The application of irredentist principles to Switzerland 
was never seriously considered. The Italians, more than 
the French and Germans, have profited by the neutraliza- 
tion of the Alpine regions that otherwise would have been 
a troublesome common frontier. Savoy was a mountain- 
ous hinterland that prevented Nice, in the hands of France, 
from becoming a competitor of Genoa and Venice for the 
trade of central Europe. The western and northern fron- 
tiers of Italy with France and Switzerland were strategi- 
cally excellent, and what lay beyond them was not economi- 
cally tempting. The frontier of 1866 with Austria, on the 
other hand, gave all the mountain fortresses to a potential 
enemy; Trieste and Fiume were powerful rivals of Genoa 
and Venice; Austria-Hungary had a naval base on the 



286 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Istrian peninsula, which dominated Venice ; and the Italian 
coast of the Adriatic was exposed and without ports, while 
the Dalmatian coast opposite was protected by numerous 
islands and had several splendid ports. 

There were *' brothers of blood" beyond all the fron- 
tiers: Nice and Savoy had been Italian up to within fifty 
years ; Trieste and most of the unredeemed regions on the 
Austrian side had belonged to the Hapsburg crown since 
the fourteenth century. Irredentist propaganda is invari- 
ably based on ethnology and history. But behind the racial 
and historical claims lurk powerful economic and strategic 
interests. To redeem their Italian-speaking brethren from 
the yoke of the foreigner and to unite them mth the 
motherland were undoubtedly the motives that actuated the 
mob spirit in Italy in the spring of 1915. But the propa- 
ganda that brought about this result became an irresistible 
national sentiment because Italian merchants and shippers 
wanted a monopoly of the Mediterranean trade of central 
Europe, and because Italian military and naval experts 
believed that the safety of their country demanded a new 
mountain frontier on the northeast and the exclusion from 
the Adriatic of all naval powers other than Italy. 

Tunisia was by far the most important booty Italy could 
hope to take from France by war ; and had the French and 
British fought in 1898 over conflicting ambitions in Africa, 
instead of adjusting their differences by a series of agree- 
ments, Italy would have been tempted to declare war on 
France to seize the coveted African province. Aggrand- 
izement in Africa entered largely into the calculations of 
Italian foreign policy at the end of the nineteenth century. 
But the Anglo-French agreement of 1904 definitely de- 
stroyed any hopes Italy might have had of using a war 
between Great Britain and France to take Tunisia from 
the latter. Italy was not forgotten during the secret nego- 
tiations leading up to that agreement, and her acceptance 
of it as a Mediterranean adjustment had already been pur- 



ITALY'S ENTRANCE INTO TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 287 

chased by the acknowledgment of her eventual rights to 
Tripoli. 

The naval supremacy of Great Britain makes it impos- 
sible for any peninsular state to go into a war on the side 
of Britain's enemies. Among peninsular states Italy is 
peculiarly at the mercy of the mistress of the seas. The 
change in the attitude of Great Britain towards France and 
Germany between 1899 and 1914 necessitated a strictly 
defensive interpretation of the Triple Alliance on the part 
of Italy. Germany realized this and did not count on 
Italian support. No credit is due to Italy for relieving 
France of the handicap of having to keep an army on the 
Italian frontier at the beginning of the war. It would have 
been madness for Italy to follow a policy of uncertain neu- 
trality. She would have suffered what Greece suffered 
later. Had there been no other impelling force than that 
of British sea power, it is probable that Italy would have 
found it prudent to join the Entente powers. 

The sober judgment of conservative and clerical, as well 
as of advanced radical, leaders was that Italy's wisest 
course would be to maintain her neutrality. Italy was 
poor, and had the opportunity to become rich. If the cen- 
tral empires won, she would certainly receive Tunisia and 
Djibouti and probably more, as a reward for having re- 
sisted the Entente propaganda. If the central empires 
were defeated, it would be to the interest of the victors to 
weaken Austria by allowing Italy to annex the Trentino 
(southern Austrian Tyrol) and Trieste. If both sides 
fought to exhaustion, Italy would be the arbiter of Europe, 
and could have pretty much all she wanted from both sides. 
In answer to the argument of the interventionists that, if 
the central empires won, Italy would have to give up her 
hope of incorporating the Trentino and Trieste, the non- 
interventionists called attention to the peril of Slavic pene- 
tration to the Adriatic that would follow an Entente victory. 

During the first winter of the war the irredentists in- 



288 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

duced public opinion to clamor for intervention by preach- 
ing, what was undoubtedly true, that Austria was the 
hereditary enemy, and that the full achievement of ItaUan 
unity was possible only through the destruction of the 
Hapsburg empire. "When the old cry of the Risorgimento 
was raised, all other considerations were disregarded.^ 
Italians must be liberated from the Austrian yoke, and the 
Adriatic must become an Italian sea. 

When Italian statesmen realized the strength of the 
interventionist propaganda, they appealed to Germany to 
influence Austria to give up enough of the disputed border 
districts to satisfy the irredentist clamor. But at the same 
time, knowing that they might have to yield to the war 
party, they entered into negotiations ^\ith the Entente 
powers to arrange as good a bargain as possible for their 
intervention. It is not correct to say that the Italian gov- 
ernment was offering Italy's sword to the highest bidder. 
On the one hand, it was impossible that Italy should con- 
sent to fight with her allies ; on the other, the men in power 
differed from the opposition only in degree of willingness 
to withstand the interventionist pressure and carried on 
the negotiations with the entente governments to jDrotect 
Italy's interests in case public opinion forced the issue. 
The anti-interventionists, under the leadership of men like 
Signor Giolitti, were not pro-German. It happened that 
the policy of strict neutrality that they advocated favored 
Germany, as its success would have meant the loss to the 
Entente of Italian aid ; but this policy was conceived wholly 
in the interest of Italy. Wliy should a safe and profitable 
neutrality be abandoned for a belligerency whose conven- 
iences and possible gains were offset by inconveniences and 
possible losses? 

^ After the downfall of Napoleon, the treaty of Vienna pnve Venetia and 
Loml^ardy to the Hapsburps and restored to their thrones the Hapsburg 
princes of central Italy. The movement for unification, called the Risorgi- 
mento, adopted the old Ghibclline motto, " Fuori i tedeschi!" ("Out with 
the Germans! ") 



ITALY'S ENTRANCE INTO TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 289 

Prince von Biilow worked indef atigably at Rome to coun- 
teract the entente propaganda wMch, although frowned 
upon in court and church circles and actively opposed by 
the bankers, steadily gained ground during the first winter 
of the war. The rock upon which the prince's efforts 
finally split was the unwillingness of Austria to abandon 
any considerable amount of territory to Italy as the price 
of continued neutrality. On April 8, 1915, the Italian gov- 
ernment formulated its program of concessions that might 
satisfy the irredentists. An unsatisfactory answer from 
Austria on April 25 led to the denunciation of the Triple 
Alliance on May 3. Italy addressed a note to Austria stat- 
ing that the ultimatum to Serbia and the subsequent Aus- 
trian acts which had brought on the World War had been 
undertaken without the knowledge or consent of Italy, had 
been contrary to the spirit and letter of the treaty of alli- 
ance, had involved Austria in responsibilities that Italy 
could not share, and that therefore the Triple Alliance had 
lost its value and was terminated. A fortnight of fruitless 
negotiations followed. On May 20 Austria offered recti- 
fications of frontier in the Tyrol and in Venetia ; the procla- 
mation of Trieste as a free imperial city with an Italian 
university; recognition of Italian sovereignty over Valona 
and avowal of Austria 's disinterestedness in Albania ; and 
an amnesty to subjects of the empire convicted for irre- 
dentist activities. 

Had the negotiations been allowed to continue, Austria 
would probably have ended by accepting Italy's conditions. 
But the demonstrations in favor of war throughout the 
country had become too threatening to be ignored. Italy 
mobilized on May 22, and the next day declared war on 
Austria. War was declared on Turkey on August 20. A 
whole year passed, however, before the Italian government 
realized that it was necessary to have Germany also as an 
enemy. Only when Germany sent troops to aid Austria on 
the Italian front did Italy, on August 28, 1916, become 



290 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

formally an enemy of her old ally. The Italians kept as- 
serting that they had no quarrel with the Germans, and 
appeared grieved and incensed when they discovered that 
Germany had determined to aid Austria against them.^ 

The Entente military authorities counted upon the Italian 
intervention to render impossible a counter-offensive of the 
central empires against Russia, which was a movement 
that they anticipated and dreaded. The Entente statesmen 
looked upon the entry of Italy into the alliance as one more 
link in the chain of enemies with which they were planning 
to encircle the central empires, and they attached much im- 
portance to * ' the moral effect ' ' of Italian intervention upon 
enemies and neutrals. In particular, they were confident 
that it would result in Rumania's adhesion. Entente fiuan- 
cial and big business interests, which played a dominant 
role in the diplomacy of the war, regarded the damage to 
German banks and commercial houses by the defection of 
Italy as an advantage worth the high price Italian states- 
men asked. 

On April 26, 1915, more than a week before she de- 
nounced the Triple Alliance, Italy had buttered her bread 
on the other side by concluding at London a secret treaty 
with Great Britain, France, and Russia. Until the soviet 
government published the archives of the Russian ministry 
of foreign affairs three years later, the terms of the treaty 
of London were not definitely known. Their disclosure, 
however, did not come as a shock, for the ambitions of Italy 
had long been a matter of public record. Italy was prom- 

* A strong and prosperous Germany is an essential part of Italian foreign 
policy, for Germany is the key to the economic well-being of central Europe, 
on -which Italy is largely dependent, ^\^lile many Italians during the war 
declared that Italy needed to cast off the yoke of Germany in business, which 
was fettering Italy, they were equally positive in announcing their intention 
not to let Great Britain and Franco take Germany's place in Italian financial 
and commercial life. The Italians want to be friends with all Europe. In 
order not to give offense to the Germany of the future, the Italian govern- 
ment has decided to celebrate November 3 instead of November 11 as armistice 
day, and the lower part of the Via Nazionalr, the principal street of Rome, has 
been changed to Via Tre Novembre to emphasize the fact that Italy's victory 
was over Austria-Hungary. 



ITALY'S ENTRANCE INTO TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 291 

ised not only the Trentino and the extension of her eastern 
frontier to include Trieste, where the population was 
largely Italian, but also the purely German Tyrolese dis- 
tricts south of the Brenner Pass; the peninsula of Istria 
with a generous hinterland ; the northern half of Dalmatia, 
and almost all the islands off the Dalmatian coast, where 
the Italian population was negligible ; Valona, the principal 
port of Albania, and its neighborhood; the twelve islands 
of the Dodecannese, whose population was Greek; and a 
portion of Asia Minor. If the French and British in- 
creased their colonial holdings in Africa at the expense of 
Germany, Italy was to receive adequate territorial com- 
pensation. 

The secret treaty of London marked the abandonment, 
before the end of the first year of the war, of the generous 
idealism that had seemed to make the conflict one of prin- 
ciples rather than of imperialistic aims. Although the 
people of the Entente countries sincerely believed that they 
were fighting for small nations and for a durable world 
peace, their governments negotiated with one another for 
political and commercial advantages throughout the world, 
and concluded a series of secret agreements (of which the 
treaty of London was only the first) that were wholly in- 
consistent with their pledges to their own peoples and to 
the world. In event of victory, the Entente powers were 
bound to support one another in preying upon small na- 
tions in the same manner as the central powers were being 
pilloried before the world for doing. The treaties signed 
at Paris in 1919 and 1920, as far as most of their territorial 
clauses are concerned, simply fulfilled bargains made dur- 
ing the war. 

Because the Jugo-Slavs and Greeks suspected the du- 
plicity of the Entente statesmen, the intervention of Italy 
did not make any appreciable difference in the general 
mihtary and pohtical situation. In Greece, King Con- 
stantine was given a new and powerful argument to use 



292 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

against the Venizelist campaign for intervention. There 
was a very widespread feeling among the Greeks that they 
had been double-crossed, and this feeling never changed, 
despite the later return to power of Venizelos and the par- 
ticipation of Greece in the war. Eumania did not imme- 
diately join the Entente, as had been expected. Even her 
interventionist statesmen realized that Rumania, too, in 
order to safeguard against being sold out, must have a 
definite secret treaty on the Italian model before abandon- 
ing neutralit3\ Instead of hastening the process of dis- 
integration in the Hapsburg empire, the intervention of 
Italy gave the Dual Monarchy a new lease of Ufe. The 
Jugo-Slavs had been soldiers of uncertain loyalty on the 
eastern front, and, with the Czechs, were demoralizing the 
army. After Italy came into the war they fought like lions 
on the new front, inspired by the knowledge that victorious 
Italy would suppress their national aspirations more ruth- 
lessly than Austria had ever done. 

We have seen how the Triple Entente was the result of 
the influence of world policies which modified and then 
reversed the attitude of the three powers towards one an- 
other. The Entente now became a quadruple grouping, 
mainly because of the irredentist movement, which forced 
the hand of the Italian government. But, as we have seen, 
Italy's partnership with Germany and Austria-Hungary 
had lost its significance from the moment Great Britain, 
with whom Italy had to remain on friendly terms, formed 
an entente with France, Germany's enemy. World poli- 
cies brought about the defection of Italy from the Triple 
Alliance, for it is doubtful if the irredentists alone could 
have forced the war. Italian imperialism saw in the vic- 
tory of the Entente the only hope of further colonial ex- 
pansion. Germany might win the war, as far as European 
hegemony was at stake. But Germany's victory, from the 
trend of her pre-war policy as well as because of her alli- 
ance with Turkey, would shut off Italy from expansion in 



ITALY'S ENTRANCE INTO TRIPLE ENTENTE (1915) 293 

the eastern Mediterranean. And in Africa France and 
Great Britain were in a better position to offer Italy colo- 
nial compensations than was Germany. 

Italy entered the war without foreseeing the sacrifices 
she would be called upon to make. She greatly underesti- 
mated the military genius and vitality of Germany, and 
never supposed that her troops would be fighting a defen- 
sive war on her own soil. Consequently, when Italian 
statesmen later took into consideration what the war had 
cost the nation, they boldly argued that even the rewards 
guaranteed by the treaty of London were insufficient. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE ALINEMENT OF THE BALKAN STATES IN THE 
EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 

SERBIA was the only Balkan state involved in the Euro- 
pean war from the beginning. To show her solidarity, 
however, Montenegro declared war upon Austria-Hungary 
on August 7, 1914. The other factors in the Balkan situa- 
tion, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and Rumania, contained 
influential partizans of both groups of the great powers, 
and an internal struggle immediately took place, which 
did not cease until all four of these states had become 
belligerents. Because of the wars through which they had 
just passed the Balkan peoples were not keen to enter upon 
new military adventures. The consensus of public opinion 
undoubtedly favored the maintenance of neutrality, and, 
as the great powers seemed to be evenly balanced, there 
was little to be gained by extending the war to the Balkans 
and Asia unless the Balkan States were ready to intervene 
together on the same side. During the first two months 
of the war the statesmen of the great powers made no 
strong bid for Balkan alliances or *' benevolent" neutral- 
ities. They believed that any aid a BaUvan recruit could 
bring them would be more than offset by the responsibili- 
ties they would have to assume of defending the new ally 
from an attack by its neighbors. 

When, however, at the end of September, Turkey joined 
the central powers, the attitude of the belligerent group 
towards the Balkan States underwent a change. It was 
now essential to the Entente powers that Germany and 
Austria-Hungary should have no opportunity of extending 
their front through the Balkans to Constantinople. They 

294 



BALKAN STATES IN EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 295 

decided to concentrate upon Turkey and put her hors du 
combat while she remained isolated from her allies. For 
this purpose the continued neutrality of the Balkan States 
was more advantageous than an alliance with one or more 
which would provoke another to join the Entente's enemies. 
This policy required delicate and complicated diplomatic 
manoeuvering. Although it eventually failed, it was worth 
trying, and it would have shortened the war had the British 
and French fleets and their expeditionary corps succeeded 
in forcing the Dardanelles in the spring and summer of 
1915. But the heritage of evil in the Balkans, due to more 
than half a century of selfish diplomacy, had to be reckoned 
with. It frustrated every move and every suggested com- 
bination, and was in large part responsible for the pro- 
longation of the war until the Romanoff as well as the 
Hapsburg empire collapsed, and until economic and politi- 
cal problems of an almost insoluble character arose to rob 
the ultimate victors of the fruits of victory. 

In the minds of Occidentals the war of 1914 was pri- 
marily a struggle of France and Great Britain against 
Germany, and from the beginning its idealism was empha- 
sized. It was a war of democracy against autocracy, of 
the defenders of small nations against their oppressors. 
Germany was a military despotism aiming at the conquest 
of the world, and Austria-Hungary was a government of 
two minority races oppressing — by dividing them — a non- 
Teutonic and non-Magyar majority. Serbia was the vic- 
tim of Austria-Hungary and Belgium the victim of Ger- 
many. From our point of view this conception of the war 
appeared true and reasonable. But the Balkan peoples 
could not see it in the same light. To them Russia was 
the principal power affected by the war, and their experi- 
ence with Russian political ideals prevented them from 
becoming enthusiastic over French and British champion- 
ship of democracy and small nations. Fear of Russia 
drove the Turks into the arms of the Germans, and while 



296 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

none of the Balkan nations sympathized with Turkey, all 
of them preferred weak Turkey to powerful Russia as 
master of Constantinople and the Straits. To Rumania 
and Bulgaria and Greece the extension of the Muscovite 
empire to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles was a possibility 
that they were not fools enough to make, by their aid, a 
probability. In Paris and London much was said about 
the Rumanians under the yoke of Hungary. But m Bu- 
kharest they thought also of the Rumanians under the yoke 
of Russia. The dream of a greater Rumania demanded 
the restoration of Bessarabia by Russia as well as the ces- 
sion of Transylvania by Hungary. 

The secret treaty by which the Entente powers definitely 
promised Constantinople to Russia was not signed until 
1915. But in every Balkan capital it was realized from 
the outbreak of the war that victorious Russia would not 
accept any reward less than Constantinople and the Straits. 
This fact, quite as much as war weariness or lack of con- 
fidence in the military superiority of the enemies of Ger- 
many, explains the unwillingness of any Balkan state to 
cast in its lot unreservedly on the side of the Entente 
powers. And the inability of French and British states- 
men to promise the Balkan States that Russia should not 
have Constantinople was a consideration of equa] import- 
ance with the opposition of the Entente militarj^ authorities 
to the assumption of new responsibilities in determining, 
during the first year of the war, the policy of not soliciting 
(and even rebuffing offers of) Ballvan aid. 

The French and British also wanted to keep the Balkan 
States out of the war because they were fishing for bigger 
game. The aspirations of Italy were in conflict with the 
legitimate interests and hopes of both Serbia and Greece. 
Serbia was already involved in the war, and could make 
no effective protest when bribes were offered Italy. E.it 
negotiations with Greece would have proved embarrassing 
because what Greece would have asked for — the Dode- 



BALKAN STATES IN EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 297 

cannese, Smyrna, and northern Epirus — the negotiators at 
Rome were preparing to give to Italy. When Italy entered 
the war in May, 1915, France and Great Britain were com- 
mitted to the support of Italian imperialism as they were 
already committed to the support of Eussian imperialism. 
This meant that the ideals of defending democracy and 
small nations were not to be applied in the Balkans, and 
the Balkan peoples knew it. 

In the summer of 1915 three events brought about a 
change in the attitude of the Entente powers towards Bal- 
kan neutrality. The naval and military operations at th*, 
Dardanelles failed. The Eussian offensive against Ger. 
many broke down all along the line. The central empires 
conquered Poland. Armies were free to begin on a large 
scale the invasion of Serbia. The intervention of Greece, 
which had twice been offered to the Entente powers and 
rejected by them, was now sought. Eumania, whose ear- 
lier participation had not been deemed necessary, was now 
solicited with generous promises of the eastern provinces 
of Hungary. But at the same time the invitation was ex- 
tended to Bulgaria, coupled with assurances of a revision 
of the treaty of Bukharest at the expense of Serbia, Greece, 
and Eumania. 

As Italy had done, Bulgaria examined bids from both 
sides, and chose the side that offered most. The Entente 
powers were successful in the bidding for Italy, because 
what Italy asked for was mostly at the expense of Austria- 
Hungary, an enemy country. But Bulgaria could not have 
been compensated by the Entente powers without alienat- 
ing Eumania and Greece. To the central empires, on the 
other hand, the participation of Bulgaria was essential in 
order to preserve communications with Turkey, and there- 
fore they paid the price. On July 17, 1915, Bulgaria signed 
a secret treaty with the central empires and Turkey. After 
three months more of negotiations with both groups of 
belligerents, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia on October 



298 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

14, and within the next few days she received declarations 
of war from Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy. 

Bulgaria cooperated with the central empires in over- 
running Serbia. The Serbian army retreated through Al- 
bania, accompanied by a part of the civilian population. 
Hundreds of thousands perished, through hunger and ex- 
posure, from the attacks of the pursuing armies and at 
the hands of Albanian bands, who now took their revenge 
for the Serbian invasion of three years before. In Janu- 
ary, 1916, the remnant of the Serbian army was transferred 
to Corfu, which the Serbian government made its provi- 
sional headquarters on February 2. 

The conquest of Serbia put Montenegro, which up to this 
time had resisted the Austrians as she had for centuries 
resisted the Turks, in an impossible situation. On Novem- 
ber 30, 1915, King Nicholas appealed for help to the repre- 
sentatives of the Allies at Cettinje. But no help was forth- 
coming. In January the Austrians attacked Mount 
Lovchen, the great fortress in the mountains over Cattaro, 
and after four days captured it. On January 12, 1916, 
Montenegro concluded an armistice with Austria-Hungary, 
and the Austrian army entered Cettinje the following day. 
It was reported that the Montenegrins had signed a capitu- 
lation, but this was later denied. King Nicholas fled 
to Rome. Part of his army surrendered and the remnant 
found its way to Corfu. The conquest of Montenegro was 
followed by the occupation of Scutari on January 23, 1916. 
From the Adriatic to the Black Sea the central empires 
were masters of a large part of the Balkans. 

The Serbian disaster was laid at the door of Greece, 
and it gave rise to one of the most complicated political 
situations of the World War. The Entente governments 
claimed that Greece was pledged to defend Serbia by the 
treaty of 1913. In this contention and in the actions they 
took on the strength of it they were upheld by M. Venizelos, 
who had negotiated the treaty as representative of Greece. 



BALKAN STATES IN EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 299 

King Constantine, on the other hand, advised and sup- 
ported by most of the statesmen and military leaders of 
Greece, interpreted the treaty differently. He claimed that 
Greece was bound to aid Serbia only if she were attacked 
by Bulgaria aiid were able to put an army of 150,000 in the 
field to cooperate with the Greek army. The treaty, ac- 
cording to the anti-Venizelists, was intended to prevent 
any attempt of Bulgaria to upset the territorial balance 
of power in the Balkans and did not provide for the con- 
tingency of a general European war. After the Bulgarian 
declaration of war upon Serbia, this interpretation seemed 
to be a quibble, and many Greeks believed with Venizelos 
not only that the treaty was operative but also that the 
vital interests of Greece demanded an alliance with the 
group of powers that were fighting Greece 's two hereditary 
enemies, Turkey and Bulgaria. 

In the first month of the war, before the battle of the 
Marne, Premier Venizelos had offered to bring Greece into 
the Entente alliance, but his overture was discouraged. 
Again, when Great Britain and France were preparing to 
attack the Dardanelles at the end of the first winter, the 
offer was renewed. The Greek government was willing to 
participate by land in the investment of the Dardanelles. 
But the Entente powers did not want Greece to have a part 
in the capture of Constantinople, because of their obliga- 
tions to Russia, and they were anxious to avoid any step 
that might drive Bulgaria into the opposite camp. Only 
after they saw that Bulgaria was going to join their ene- 
mies and realized the peril of Serbia, did they change 
their attitude, suddenly summoning Premier Venizelos to 
fulfil the terms of the alliance with Serbia, which he had 
been willing to do from the beginning. When Venizelos 
pointed out that the military situation had changed and 
that, as she could no longer do it herself, it was necessary 
to provide for Serbia the 150,000 men stipulated in the 
treaty as Serbia's quota in the campaign against Bulgaria^ 



300 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

France and Great Britain agreed to furnish this number 
of troops. 

Using these pourparlers as justification for claiming 
they had been invited, the two powers notified Veni- 
zelos on October 1 that an expeditionary force was 
sailing that day from Marseilles for Saloniki. Venizelos 
immediately protested formally against the proposed vio- 
lation of Greek neutrality. The Entente powers were send- 
ing 13,000 troops instead of 150,000, and Venizelos knew 
that under these circumstances Greek public opinion would 
be hostile to war and that he would have to resign. Bul- 
garia had not yet declared war, and the Entente powers, 
after refusing Greece's aid at a propitious moment, 
now tried to force Greece into the war, with inadequate 
backing on their part, at a time when the lisk would be 
enormous. 

Venizelos resigned on October 5, 1915, the day of the 
entente landing at Saloniki. The expeditionary corps 
proved unable, as he had foreseen, either to save Serbia or 
to protect Greece from the invasion that naturally followed 
the use of her great port as a base for military operations. 
At first the central empires and Bulgaria, in their anxiety 
not to offend Greece, respected her neutrality, although it 
was being violated by their enemies. But when the Salo- 
niki front became threatening by the increase of the En- 
tente's army in Macedonia, they invaded Greece and in- 
vested Saloniki. Frontier fortresses and the eastern part 
of Macedonia, with the port of Kavala, fell into the hands 
of the Bulgarians. This proved too much for Venizelos, 
who had been living in retirement. Together with Ad- 
miral Coundouriotis, he went to Crete, called upon the 
Greeks to rally around him to save their country from the 
Bulgarians, and then set up a provisional government at 
Saloniki on October 19, 1916, which was recognized by the 
Entente powers. 



BALKAN STATES IN EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 301 

Only the islands and the new provinces of Greece, for 
whose emancipation from Turkey Venizelos had been re- 
sponsible, adhered to the Saloniki government, and al- 
though the quality of the volunteers that flocked to join 
Venizelos was splendid, their number was not sufficient 
to change for the better the precarious military situation 
of the Entente powers in Macedonia. London and Paris 
began to fear that the Greeks who remained loyal to King 
Constantine would attack the Balkan expeditionary corps 
in the rear. The British and French ministers at Athens 
were instructed to demand the withdrawal of the Greek 
army from Thessaly, its partial demobilization, and finally 
its internment in the Peloponnesus. The Greek fleet was 
seized by the Entente powers ; the expulsion of pro-German 
sympathizers and agents was demanded, and later of the 
ministers and consuls of the central powers. On December 
1, 1916, sailors and marines, mostly French, were landed at 
the PiraBus and marched to Athens to enforce an ulti- 
matum; but they were fired upon, and had to retreat to 
their ships. A wholesale massacre was avoided only by 
the threat of a naval bombardment of Athens. Rela- 
tions between King Constantine and the Entente powers 
gradually reached the point of open hostility, with the 
Greek people divided into partizans of the king and of 
Venizelos. The trump card of the Entente was its mastery 
of the sea. Greece is one of the most exposed countries 
in the world. There was no declaration of war, but Greece 
was blockaded, and finally, on June 11, 1917, the Entente 
powers compelled King Constantine to abdicate and placed 
upon the throne his second son, Alexander. Venizelos was 
brought back from Saloniki and made premier on June 27. 
Three days later Greece declared war on the central 
powers, Bulgaria, and Turkey. 

Long before the war Rumania had been regarded as an 
outpost of the Triple Alliance, not because of her sov- 



302 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ereign's origin,^ but because of the policy of her leading 
statesmen, shown in many ways, to favor in economic as 
w^ell as political matters the central empires. Eumania 
was, like Italy, an economic outlet for central Europe. Her 
ports, Constanza and Galatz, like the Italian ports, 
Genoa and Venice, were in large measure dependent 
upon central European economic prosperity. Although 
Eumania and Italy could not hope to achieve their 
national unity except to the detriment of Hungary and 
Austria, disappointment over the award of Bessarabia to 
Eussia by the treaty of Berlin and over the seizure of 
Tunisia by France inclined the two countries towards the 
central empires and helped to bring Italy into the Triple 
Alliance and Eumania into its orbit. The belief that pan- 
Slavism menaced them more than pan-Germanism served 
to keep these two Latin peoples for more than a genera- 
tion in an association that was contrary to their cultural 
leanings. 

When Italy joined the Entente alliance in the spring of 
1915, western Europe beheved that Eumania would follow 
her example. The interventionist party in Eumania con- 
tained more influential jjolitical leaders and bankers than 
that in Italy. But the increasing military weakness of 
Russia, the failure of the Entente naval and mihtary expe- 
ditions to force the Dardanelles, and, above all, the hor- 
rible fate of Serbia, which the Entente powers had proved 
themselves impotent to prevent, were events that played 
into the hands of the able and distinguished leaders of 
the pro-German party. The argument that intervention 
was a great risk was more reasonable in Eumania than in 

* Eumania, like most European countries, had a dynasty of German blood 
and sympathies. Kinp Constantine of Greece was hrother-inlaw to the Ger- 
man kaiser. King Carol of Rl mania was a Hohenzollern. He died shortly 
after the outbreak of tlie war, and was succeeded by his nephew Ferdinand, 
who was married to a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Cohurg and Gotha, the 
family to which belonged the royal houses of Great Britain and Bulgaria. 
Blood relationship, of course, did not necessarily influence the policies or 
countries, and the easy explanation of the attitude of Greece and Rumania 
in the early years of the war on the ground of dynastic ties is imcom-incing. 



BALKAN STATES IN EUROPEAN WAR (1914-1917) 303 

Greece, and the fears of the non-interventionists proved 
later to have been well founded. Rumania allied to the 
Entente, said the pro-Germans, would be isolated from her 
proposed allies, as was Eussia, and could count on no aid 
from them in the event of invasion. 

Considerations of foreign and internal policy also 
worked against the Entente in Rumania. Constantinople 
had been promised to Russia. There was no indication of 
a willingness to revise the Bessarabian settlement of the 
treaty of Berlin. By bargaining with Bulgaria the Entente 
statesmen showed that expediency, and not friendship, 
was dictating their Balkan policy. Under conditions less 
dangerous than those faced by Rumania, Greece showed 
herself unwilling to join the Entente. To the landed 
aristocracy, which controlled Rumanian politics, irredent- 
ism contained a great danger to their privileged position. 
Under Hungarian rule the Transylvanians enjoyed univer- 
sal suffrage, while suffrage was limited in Rumania. In 
Transylvania the Rumanian population owned land in 
small holdings and had long advocated the breaking up of 
large estates. If Transylvania were united with Rumania, 
the existing Rumanian oligarchical system would have to 
combat an aggressive agrarian policy. 

For more than a . year after Italy made her choice 
Rumania hesitated and temporized. The irredentist propa- 
ganda finally carried the day. On August 27, 1916, Ru- 
mania declared war on Austria-Hungary and crossed the 
Transylvanian frontier. Immediately Germany, Bulgaria, 
and Turkey declared war on Rumania. After initial suc- 
cesses, the Rumanians found themselves on the defensive. 
They received very little aid from Russia and none from 
Great Britain and France. The Entente army in Mace- 
donia proved impotent to keep Bulgaria occupied, much 

If the throne of Greece was occupied by a brother-in-law of a HohenzoUem 
and of Eumania by a Hohenzollern, it must be remembered that the arch- 
HohenzoUern, Wilhelm II, was a grandson of Queen Victoria and cousin of 
his greatest enemies, the King of England and the Czar of Eussia. 



304 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

less give active aid to the new ally. Within three months 
most of Eumania was conquered by the armies of the cen- 
tral powers in Bulgaria. 

At the beginning of 1917 the fortunes of the entente 
powers were at low ebb in the Balkans. Their diplomatic 
efforts had miscarried. Their military campaigns had 
proved a succession of failures. The expedition against 
the Dardanelles, after stupendous losses, was withdrawn. 
The Saloniki army was marking time. Serbia, Monte- 
negro, and most of Rumania were in the hands of their 
enemies. Greece seemed hopelessly divided. The defec- 
tion of Russia was imminent. But at this moment Ger- 
many took the fatal step of forcing the United States into 
the war. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 

BY looking to Peking to represent and bind and be re- 
sponsible for all China, the great powers first acted in 
ignorance. Later, when they realized the nature of the 
imperial organization, they still refused to accept the dif- 
ference between the Chinese and the European conception 
of statehood. They insisted upon the authority and respon- 
sibility of the imperial throne, and, to clothe their predatory 
schemes with a semblance of legality, they professed to 
regard China as a united and cohesive state at the very 
moment when they were conspiring against Chinese unity. 
We can not understand the phenomenon of the birth of 
the Chinese Republic, involving the fall of the Manchus and 
the confusing years of coups d'etat and civil war, without 
emphasizing the successive attacks of the great powers 
upon Chinese territorial and political integrity and their 
attempt at economic enslavement of the country by loans 
and concessions. If the Manchu dynasty had made the 
throne the rallying-point of successful resistance against 
all the powers, there would have been no republican move- 
ment. But the weak and corrupt officials at Peking, tol- 
erated in the old days, came to be regarded as the instru- 
ments of the ''foreign devils." And they were. Inability 
to prevent the decay of China, in the face of foreign en- 
croachment, doomed the Manchu dynasty. What we are 
witnessing in China is a transformation of a civilization 
into a nation. It is not political evolution from imperial 
to repubhcan institutions, but the slow and confusing pro- 



306 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

cess of the awakening to national consciousness of the most 
numerous people in the world. 

The revolution of 1911 ^^as preceded by unmistakable 
symptoms of a new spirit in China. Through the conces- 
sions, the opening of more treaty ports, and the increase of 
taxation, the Chinese of the provinces began to realize that 
the foreigners were insisting that Peking exercise the pre- 
rogative of acting for China so that they might more easily 
exploit the country. The great powers were demanding 
that the central government assert its sovereignty, bring 
the provinces under direct administrative control, and col- 
lect taxes, in order that the sovereignty, the administrative 
control, and the proceeds of tax collections be transferred 
to them. If the Peking government was to have the author- 
ity to pledge the resources of China for the payment of 
interest on loans and indemnities, to cede ports and the 
wealth of whole provinces to foreigners, to open wide the 
door to foreign exploitation, it was high time that the Chi- 
nese race became the Chinese nation, in order that it might 
defend its economic interests by asserting its political sov- 
ereignty. 

The first symptom of change was interest in military 
training. Despite increased taxation, public opinion sup- 
ported the raising of armies. After ihe Boxer uprising, 
military drill was introduced into the curriculum of schools. 
Sons of princes and nobles were encouraged to enter the 
army, and in the autumn of 1906, after the reorganization 
along Occidental lines was begun, in a single month young 
men offered themselves for military service in larger num- 
ber than had been the total strength of the Chinese army. 

The second sjTnptom waS( interest in administrative, 
financial, educational, and social reforms. The imperial 
edict of September 1, 1906, marked the beginning of the 
effort to follow the example of Japan, that is, to accept 
Occidental ways of doing things, not because they were be- 
lieved to be superior, but because self-defense demanded 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 307 

the transformation.^ China had never before been faced 
with the necessity of raising enormous sums of money to 
be paid out by a central government. The Chinese, except 
at a few places on the coast, had never before seen foreign- 
ers appear in the ports, on river-banks, and in the prov- 
inces, with authority from Peking to seize land and to take 
over its administration. The struggle for existence against 
the foreigner, including the Japanese neighbor, necessi- 
tated learning how to do things as they were done else- 
where. Cutting off pigtails, abandoning baby shoes for 
Women, revising the examination system for civil service, 
going abroad or to foreign institutions to study, exhibiting 
sudden jealousy over the maintenance of Chinese sover- 
eignty in Tibet and Mongolia, clamoring for universal suf- 
frage and representative government, recognizing the 
equality of women — these leaves have been taken from our 
book by the Chinese in order that they might better be able 
to keep us from preying upon them. 

The third symptom was the growing tendency to show 
openly hostility to foreigners. As xenophobia was no 
longer confined to reactionaries and coolies, the old sooth- 
ing explanations of anti-foreign agitation had become in- 
adequate. For it was traced, not to officials who resented 
the diminishing of their ability to graft, to villagers who 
did not like the ways and actions of missionaries, and to 
peasants the graves of whose ancestors were being dis- 
turbed by railway construction, but to the Chinese edu- 
cated abroad, who were returning in great numbers to 
point out to their fellow countrymen the shame of being 
exploited economically and of not being master in their 
own house. It is impossible for an intelligent Chinese to 
travel abroad or even to study in a foreign institution in 

^ Four months after the edict of reforms, the edict of December 31, 1906, 
was promulgated, raising Confucius to the same rank as heaven and earth. 
Although most of the younger leaders of the revolutionary movement were 
graduates or former students of Christian schools, the Young Chinese wanted 
it to be clearly understood that they had no connection with any missionary 
propaganda. 



308 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

China without becoming convinced that his people are suf- 
fering indignities and injustices at the hands of foreigners 
in their own country. Therefore the very fact of his edu- 
cation in foreign concepts and foreign ways, since it opens 
his eyes to the infamy of the treatment of his people, makes 
him an anti-foreign propagandist. He can see no justifica- 
tion for the conduct of the powers ; they are simply bullies, 
availing themselves of their superior strength. Xenopho- 
bia is the most encouraging sign of changing China. For 
it indicates a development of political self-respect and a 
proper conception of the obligations and privileges of 
nationhood. Only freemen are able to create a modern 
state. Xenophobia will grow in China rapidly as education 
spreads and intercourse with the outside world increases. 

Concentration of power in the hands of the imperial gov- 
ernment, which began in 1907, led to a movement for demo- 
cratic control, and the primary reason given by leaders in 
the agitation in the provinces for the overthrow of autoc- 
racy was that the establishment of representative gov- 
ernment at Peking was the only means of resisting the 
continuance of concession-granting with its consequent en- 
croachment by European powers and Japan upon Chinese 
sovereignty. At every meeting held in support of the pro- 
gram of reforms a constitutional system of government 
was advocated, and the resolutions voted contained a para- 
graph calling upon Peking to refuse the demands of all 
foreign governments for further favors. At a great dem- 
onstration at Canton there was a protest against British 
vessels of war doing police work in Chinese waters. In 
1908 the leaders of the constitutional movement announced 
that it would result in the control of all railways and mines 
by Chinese and the abolition of Russian and Japanese ad- 
ministration and jurisdiction in Manchuria. 

In November, 1908, the old empress dowager died, leav- 
ing the government in the hands of a group of nobles and 
generals, who promulgated laws in the name of the five- 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 309 

year-old emperor. The first step toward constitutional 
government was the convocation of an imperial assembly 
on October 3, 1910, to consider the problem of meeting the 
growth of the popular revolutionary movement. Of the 
two hundred members, one half were Manchus — imperial 
princes or dukes, clansmen, hereditary nobles, high func- 
tionaries, and great landowners. The other half were mem- 
bers of provincial assembhes who had been chosen by the 
viceroys. The imperial assembly, realizing that the popu- 
lar demand for parliamentary government could not be 
ignored, recommended that elections be held for a national 
parliament. The government, which had wanted to post- 
pone constitutional changes for seven years, compromised 
on three years. On November 4, 1910, an edict appeared 
promising the inauguration of the parliament in 1913, and 
setting forth regulations for the constitution of the cabinet 
and parliament and for holding a general election. The 
assembly was not satisfied that it would be safe to wait 
even three years, but it had no power to amend the edict, 
and before adjourning warned the government against 
sanctioning a foreign loan and against granting further 
concessions to foreigners. 

Under pressure of foreign diplomats and foreign finan- 
ciers, the imperial government did not listen to the warning. 
This was the direct cause of the revolution that led to 
China becoming a constitutional state as a republic rather 
than as an empire. An epidemic of bubonic plague was 
taken advantage of by Russia and Japan to get Chinese 
and international acknowledgment of their sovereignty and 
spheres of influence in Manchuria. When Russia estab- 
lished consulates in towns where importance of trade was 
no excuse, when Mongol princes visited Petrograd, and 
when Peking refused to allow the viceroy of Yunnan to 
take measures to prevent the British from extending the 
frontier of Burma, the Chinese became thoroughly alarmed. 
The last straw was the signing of railway agreements with 



310 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

foreign financiers and the borrowing of money from a for- 
eign group for currency reform and industrial enterprises 
in Manchuria. Revolution broke out in south China; and 
the Manchu garrisons were massacred in most cities. 

Yuan-Shih-Kai, who was successfully leading an army 
against the revolutionaries, had to be recalled to Peking 
to assume the premiership. But neither his military nor 
political ability could save the Manchu dynasty. Province 
after province went over to the revolution, and the admiral 
of the Yangtze fleet joined the rebels. Yuan-Shih-Kai 
failed in his attempt to form a coalition cabinet. Some of 
those whom he asked to join him, such as Wu Ting Fang, 
former minister to the United States, responded by becom- 
ing members of the republican government that had been 
proclaimed at Shanghai. At the beginning of December 
the regent resigned. Yuan-Shih-Kai agreed to an armis- 
tice and proposed federal government for China. The 
revolutionaries, however, instead insisted that the Manchu 
dynasty abdicate and a republic be proclaimed. On the 
last day of the year, Doctor Sun Yat Sen, organizer of the 
revolution, who had lived for fourteen years in exile and 
had just returned, was unanimously elected president at 
Shanghai. On January 5, 1912, a manifesto to the foreign 
powers proclaimed the establishment of the republic. Two 
weeks later the success of the movement was assured by 
the decision of Dr. Sun Yat Sen to resign the presidency in 
favor of Yuan-Shih-Kai, provided the emperor abdicated 
and all the provinces agreed. 

While the diplomats looked on bewildered, the revolu- 
tion marched apace. On February 12 the emperor abdi- 
cated, after having signed a decree creating a constitu- 
tional republic. Yuan-Shih-Kai was ordered to establish 
a provisional government in conjunction with the revolu- 
tionaries. Five days later this appointment was confirmed 
by representatives of seventeen provinces, who voted at 
the same time the adoption of the Western calendar. On 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 311 

March 16 Yuan-Shih-Kai was inaugurated first president 
of China, and on April 1 the president and members of the 
cabinet of the revolutionary government gave up their 
seals of office. Parliament was to be summoned within six 
months. 

Public opinion in America, Europe, and Japan was far 
from being hostile to the Chinese Republic. As in the case 
of the establishment of a constitutional regime in Turkey, 
press comment was universally sympathetic. But foreign- 
ers who were in business in China and the European diplo- 
mats in the Far East did not want to see the constitutional 
movement succeed. They knew that if the old system of 
governing China were done away with, it would mean a 
serious curtailment of their opportunities to exploit China 
and to negotiate with one another at her expense. Natur- 
ally, they still wanted to grind their axes by bribing or in- 
timidating corrupt officials who were not answerable for 
their actions to a parliament. 

The great powers withheld recognition of the republic, 
and Yuan-Shih-Kai quickly found that the foreigners were 
determined not to allow a constitutional government to 
function. With the exception of the United States (whose 
sympathy, however, has never gone beyond words), the 
powers have consistently refused to give China a chance to 
inaugurate and develop administrative reforms and put 
her treasury in order. The host of treaty provisions, be- 
ginning with the treaty of Nanking, forced on China after 
Great Britain's Opium War, were based upon the funda- 
mental differences existing between Occidental and Oriental 
institutions. The foreigners could not trust the Chinese 
government to protect them or to give them justice in 
courts; hence the necessity of extra-territoriality, ^vith 
foreign police (after the Boxer Rebellion detachments of 
foreign armies, which never went home), foreign courts, 
foreign districts and treaty ports, leaseholds, and in some 
cases outright cessions of territory. The postal adminis- 



312 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tration was deficient; hence the foreign post-offices, tele- 
graph lines, cables, and wireless stations under foreign 
control. The Chinese had curious ideas of finance; hence 
they were not allowed to have anything to do with taxes 
where the foreigners ruled, or to fix tariifs or collect cus- 
toms duties. At the point of the sword — or, more literally, 
at the war-ship's cannon mouth — China kept signing the 
treaties drawn up by the foreigners, in none of which was 
there reciprocity. And now, when China tried to follow 
Occidental methods of government, she was told that she 
must remain as she was.^ 

Yuan-Shih-Kai's first experience with this concerted de- 
termination was when the foreign ministers in Peking 
denied his right to borrow money in the open market and 
frustrated the Chinese etfort to float a foreign loan in any 
other way than through legation channels. The formation 
of an army was alarming Russia and Japan, who conceived 
a scheme for limiting China's ability to command respect 
for her sovereignty — a banking group of six powers, with 
the stipulation that China should get no money unless she 
promised not to spend for military purposes more than one 
twentieth of what she borrowed. The new government 
gave European diplomacy a terrible jolt by negotiating a 
loan of ten million pounds with a private British firm on 

^ During the discussions over the restrictions imposed by the powers upon 
China at the Limitation of Armaments Conference (session of November 22, 
1921), Senator Underwood declared that these restrictions were so sweeping 
as to . make it impossible for China "to go forward upon any scheme for 
political and territorial freedom. ' ' Senator Underwood said that he had 
been impressed with the fact that China was not being given a chance to 
establish a stable financial policy, and that this could not be done until she 
was ' ' unhampered by treaty inhibitions. ' ' The powers have refused China 
the right exercised by other countries to establish their own customs duties 
and make differential schedules. For the sake of their trade and to the ruin 
of China, they insist upon a five per cent, ad valorem duty, and China is 
powerless to protect any of her own industries or to tax heavily imported 
luxuries. The customs duties and railway receipts are deposited in foreign 
banks, which pay the coupons on loans. But these banks not only get the 
benefit of the money deposited until the coupons are cashed, but also postpone 
for a long time payment of balances due the Chinese government. The Wash- 
ington conference made a small beginning towards rectifying these injustices, 
but moat of them are still maintained. 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 313 

easier terms than those laid down by the six-power group — 
and without any clause arbitrarily restricting her military 
budget. But \vhen the chancelleries recovered they brought 
united pressure to bear both upon the independent British 
bankers and upon the Peking government to cancel the 
loan arrangements. 

Elections were held at the beginning of 1913, and on 
April 8 the first parliament was inaugurated at Peking. 
Five hundred of the 596 representatives and 177 of the 274 
senators were present. Never in history had so large and 
representative a body of delegates of the Chinese provinces 
met. It would have been surprising had difficulties not 
arisen. It was in the nature of things that from the begin- 
ning Yuan-Shih-Kai should meet with opposition from his 
old enemies, the original revolutionaries. Before long a 
revolt broke out in the Yangtze Valley, which spread in the 
south, at the head of which were Doctor Sun Yat Sen and 
others of the first Canton government. 

Yuan-Shih-Kai 's difficulties were greatly enhanced by 
the attitude of the powers, whose pressure upon him, while 
they still refused to recognize him, was enormous. If he 
acceded to their demands the rebellion in the south was 
bound to gain in strength. If he refused to continue to sell 
out the interests of China, as the old imperial government 
had done, the foreign ministers were ready to combine to 
prevent him from getting money to carry on his govern- 
ment. The British tried to get him to admit the virtual 
independence of Tibet and the Russians of Mongolia, while 
the Russians and Japanese were acting as if Manchuria 
was altogether lost to China. The powers backed their 
financiers in imposing a large loan, under onerous condi- 
tions, from a consortium of banks, which was secured by 
mortgaging the salt revenues and the future surplus of 
maritime customs. One of its stipulations, i.e., that the 
foreign interests should have inspectors and advisers in 
the various departments of the ministry of finance, was 



314 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

one more step to bring the country under foreign 
controL 

The ne^ revolt was put down before the end of the sum- 
mer. In the presidential election, held in October, Yuan- 
Shih-Kai was overwhelmingly chosen president for the term 
of tive years. In November, when parliament was consid- 
ering the limitation of the power of the president, he de- 
clared vacant the seats of the members of the southern 
party, thus excluding nearly half of the senators and more 
than half of the representatives. On January 11, 1914, he 
dissolved the parliament and appointed a committee to 
draft a constitution, which proposed a one-chamber parlia- 
ment, abolishing the cabinet, and substituting for the prime 
minister, who was responsible to parliament, a secretary 
of state who would act under the direct order of the 
president. 

When the European war broke out Yuan-Shih-Kai was 
the dictator of China, although his authority was by no 
means recognized everywhere. He had against him the 
exiled revolutionaries and the Manchu conspirators, who 
represented the two extremes. He was facing the serious 
uprising of the mysterious "White Wolf." The powers 
were still at work in outlying provinces, instigating agents 
who were undermining or denying the authority of the re- 
public — Eussia in Mongolia, Great Britain in Tibet, France 
in Yunnan, Germany in Shantung, Japan in Fukien, and 
Eussia and Japan in Manchuria. The president had to ac- 
cept the unpopularity of increasing taxation to meet obli- 
gations to foreign powers, and of enforcing respect for the 
concessions, which intelligent Chinese knew were in large 
part being developed in a spirit and with an intention that 
the powers would never tolerate in their own countries. 
After Japan entered the war, Yuan-Shih-Kai was con- 
fronted with a new situation, due to the substitution of 
Japan for Germany in the Shantung peninsula. 

Japan took advantage of the preoccupation of the Euro- 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 315 

pean pofwers to present her twenty-one demands.^ Yuan- 
Shih-Kai issued a remarkable manifesto. He admitted that 
China had suffered by the concessions in Manchuria and 
Mongolia, and was exposed to a more serious menace than 
had existed before in the fact that Japan was now installed 
on both sides of the capital. He expressed sorrow and 
shame for the humiliation the country was being forced to 
bear, but pointed out that the weakness of the Chinese peo- 
ple made these renunciations of sovereignty and impair- 
ments of national interests impossible to avoid. Only when 
China became a strong nation, able to defend herself 
against all the world, could her wrongs be righted. 

At the end of 1915, despite the virtual veto of the Entente 
powers, the council of state, after a dubious referendum 
to the provinces, formally asked Yuan-Shih-Kai to become 
emperor. His consent was a signal for a new revolt. On 
December 26, 1915, the province of Yunnan declared its 
independence, and governors of other provinces began to 
send threatening communications to Peking. The coro- 
nation had been fixed for February 9, 1916, but at the end 
of January Yuan-Shih-Kai announced that the change of 
regime had been indefinitely postponed. This did not calm 
the rebels. By the end of April seven provinces of south 
China had separated from Peking. Despite Yuan-Shih- 
Kai 's declaration that the scheme to reestablish the mon- 
archy was totally abandoned, the movement kept spreading. 

On June 6 Yuan-Shih-Kai conveniently died. The vice- 
president, Li Yuan Hung, who succeeded according to the 
provisions of the constitution, declared that he was a con- 
stitutionalist and gave proof of his good faith by reassem- 
bling the old parliament within two months of his succession. 
As he was acceptable to the south, unity was tem- 
porarily restored. But the north and the south remained 
divided on questions of policy. The southern leaders were 
liberals or radicals. Those of the north, recruited from 

^ See pp. 324-325. 



316 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

military men who had been under the training of Yuan- 
Shih-Kai, believed that the first duties of the republic were 
to build up a large army and to organize a centralized sys- 
tem like that of France. 

Most Chinese were profoundly indifferent to the war in 
Europe. Having been treated abominably by all the pow- 
ers, they were unable to see the force of the claim that the 
Entente powers were fighting to establish the rights of weak 
nations throughout the world and to put right above might 
as the norm of conduct in international relations. Chinese 
reactionaries and military men had sympathy and admira- 
tion for Germany, but not more than the same classes in 
Japan and Russia, both of which countries were at war with 
Germany. Chinese liberals believed in the principles pro- 
claimed by the Entente leaders and held imperial Germany 
in abhorrence. But two members of the Entente Alliance, 
Russia and Japan, were doing in China what they were 
fighting to prevent Germany from accomplishing in Europe. 
From their own country's experience during the last half 
century, France and Great Britain were known to have a 
double standard of morality, because they treated Asiatic 
peoples in the way they condemned and proclaimed a cru- 
sade against the central empires for treating European 
peoples. Chinese neutrality was therefore in sympathy 
with the attitude of the public mind, and could not have 
been changed to belligerency by propaganda coming from 
the outside. Chinese statesmen were ready from the begin- 
ning to join the Entente, but this was for the sole reason of 
thwarting Japan in Shantung and winning the support of 
the powers in the resistance to the twenty-one demands. 
Japan saw this, and opposed the intervention of China. 
But her opposition might not have succeeded had the Chi- 
nese been eager to fight Germany. 

The break between the United States and Germany com- 
pletely changed the situation. The Chinese had been fol- 
lowing closely President Wilson's speeches. The analogy 



CHINA AS A REPUBLIC (1906-1917) 317 

between their own wrongs and those bitterly denounced 
by the American president, and the wonderful vista of in- 
dependence opened to China by the proposed application 
of the Wilsonian principles, inspired the Chinese with the 
determination to enter the war, because it had now become 
a world war, and to aid in the triumph of the ideal of an 
association of nations, in which the defense of a nation's 
rights did not depend wholly upon a nation's own strength 
or its usefulness as a pawn in the game of world politics. 

China was formally invited by the United States to enter 
the war. A note was sent to Germany breaking off diplo- 
matic relations. But there was delay in the actual declara- 
tion of war, because the southern party did not want to 
strengthen the hands of the northern party by giving the 
government the opportunity of exercising arbitrary power 
by proclaiming a state of siege, which would probably 
follow the declaration of war. The southerners asked that 
before war was declared a new cabinet be formed, with a 
larger representation for the south. Civil war broke out 
again in August, 1917, when the southern provinces se- 
ceded, and China is still suffering from a division that 
increases her weakness. 

The civil dissensions in China, however, had not meant 
differences of opinion in regard to foreign affairs. When 
President Li declared war upon Germany and Austria- 
Hungary on August 14, 1917, it was not the fact, but the 
illegal method of accomplishing it, against which the south- 
erners protested. The southern government, whose head- 
quarters are at Canton, worked with the northern govern- 
ment to present and defend the Chinese point of view both 
at the Paris conference of 1919 and the Washington con- 
ference of 1921. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

JAPAN'S THIED CHALLENGE TO EUROPE: THE WAR WITH 
GERMANY AND THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS OK CHINA 

(1914-1916) 

LESS than ten years after Great Britain agreed to ac- 
cept Japan as an equal, the Anglo-Japanese treaty 
was signed. This "agreement for guaranteeing peace in 
the Far East," made in 1902, was replaced by a treaty of 
alliance in 1905. The rapprochement proved popular in 
both countries and worked out to the advantage of both- 
and it was revised and renewed for ten years in 1911. The 
influence of the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian treaties 
was felt almost immediately in the Far East. Japan en- 
tered into agreements with France in 1907 and with Russia 
in 1907 and 1910. Germany was diplomatically isolated in 
Asia as in Africa. "When Japan entered the European war, 
she became an integral member of the Entente Alliance and 
signed the pact of London. A closely knit convention with 
Russia in 1916 completed the prestige of Japan as a great 
power. 

The Pacific islands of Germany cost more than they 
brought in, afforded no opportunity for settlement and 
very little for trade, and interested chiefly missionaries. 
Tneir only value was for naval purposes. They gave Ger- 
many places she could call her own on the path from Amer- 
ica to Australia and from Asia to Australia. They afforded 
an opportunity for coaling stations, for cable landings, and 
for wireless telegraphy. And that was all. But to Ger- 
many they looked important because they were all that 
Germany had. 

318 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH GERMANY (1914-1916) 319 

As Germany was not mistress of the sea, she had no 
means of defending these possessions when the European 
war broke out. Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, on the mainland 
of New Guinea, was seized by the Australians at the begin- 
ning of September, 1914. New Zealand sent an expedi- 
tionary force to Samoa. The Japanese gathered in the 
other groups of islands. Before the end of 1914 Great 
Britain and Japan agreed upon the division of the booty. 
Samoa went to New Zealand, the German islands south of 
the equator to Australia, and those north of the equator to 
Japan. 

The one possession of Germany in Asia that had intrinsic 
economic value was the foothold secured in China in 1897.^ 
The military efforts of the German government were con- 
centrated on making at Tsing-tau, on the tip of the northern 
promontory of Kiau-chau Bay, a powerful fortress. But 
the idea of creating a naval base was linked from the be- 
ginning with the plan of developing a port as a commercial 
outlet for the whole province of Shantung. In the fifteen 
years from 1899 to 1914, Tsing-tau was transformed from 
a fishing village into a railway terminus and port, equipped 
with every modern improvement, and representing an 
investment of hundreds of millions of marks. In govern- 
ment buildings, warehouses, and dock facilities, Tsing- 
tau became a model of European enterprise in the Far 
East. 

Early in August, 1914, the British government asked 
Japan to intervene in the war under the terms of the Anglo- 
Japanese alliance. It was pointed out to Japan that Ger- 
man cruisers and armed vessels were a menace to com- 
merce, and that therefore the disturbance of ''the peace of 
the Far East and the immediate interests of the Japanese 
as well as of the British Empire" made operative the alli- 
ance. Great Britain wanted German influence destroyed 
in China. 

*The lease was not signed until March 6, 1898, and the district was 
declared a protectorate on April 27. 



320 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

The reward held out to Japan was permission to take 
over the German lease of Kiau-chau and the German con- 
cessions of Shantung. Baron Kato said to parliament: 

''Japan has no desire or inclination to become involved in 
the present conflict. But she believes she owes it to herself 
to be faithful to the alliance with Great Britain and to 
strengthen its foundation by insuring permanent peace in 
the East and protecting the special interests of the two 
Allied Powers. Desiring, however, to solve the situation 
by pacific means, the Imperial Government has given the 
following advice to the German Government. ' ' 

The advice was an ultimatum to Germany, presented on 
August 15, 1914, asking for the immediate withdra^val of 
German men-of-war and armed vessels of all kinds from 
Chinese and Japanese waters, and the delivery at a date 
not later than September 15 of the entire leased territory 
of Kiau-chau to the Japanese authorities, with a view to the 
eventual restoration of the same to China. An uncondi- 
tional acceptance of the "advice" was asked by noon on 
August 23. Japan couched the ultimatum, even to the use 
of the word ''advice," on the terms of the Russo-Franco- 
German ultimatum concerning the restoration of Liao- 
tung to China, when the three powers had combined to pre- 
vent the execution of the treaty of Shimonoseki. It took 
ten years for Japan to get even with Russia. After t^venty 
years the opportunity came to punish Germany. 

Germany ignored the ultimatum. On August 23 Japan 
declared war and blockaded Kiau-chau. The Germans had 
only four thousand soldiers and sailors in the fortress of 
Tsing-tau. There was no hope of relief by land or sea. 
Although not previously consulted, the Chinese government 
saw through the Japanese game. China offered to join the 
Entente powers, and could very easily have undertaken the 
investment of Tsing-tau by land. Japan did not need to 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH GERMANY (1914-1916) 321 

send a single soldier. But the offer of China was rejected. 
Furthermore, instead of immediately investing the German 
fortress, Japan landed twenty thousand troops at Lung- 
chow, on the northern coast of Shantung, a hundred and 
fifty miles away from the Germans. They were in no hurry 
to attack the fortress. During the month of September the 
Japanese took possession of the rail'way line all the way 
from Kiau-chau Bay to Tsinan, and the German mining 
properties. They occupied the principal cities of the penin- 
sula, — ^places that the Germans had never gone to, — seized 
the Chinese postal and telegraph offices, and expelled the 
Chinese employees from the railway. The investment and 
capture of Tsing-tau was a matter of a few days. But the 
bombardment and assault of the forts, in which fifteen 
hundred British soldiers cooperated, did not occur until the 
end of October. In the meantime the Japanese were in- 
stalled in one of the richest provinces of China in a way the 
Germans had never planned. 

The garrison of Tsing-tau capitulated on November 7, 
1914. The Japanese permitted the governor and officers to 
retain their swords, and when the vanquished arrived at 
Tokio they were met by Japanese women who offered them 
flowers. 

When the expulsion of the Germans from Shantung was 
followed by disasters to the Eussians, Japan began to 
breathe more freely than at any time since she became a 
modern state. The collapse of Russia changed the political 
situation of the Far East to the advantage of Japan much 
more than the expulsion of German influence from China 
and the islands of the Pacific. Then, too, the European war 
was dragging on. The Japanese watched with satisfaction 
and delight the increasing exhaustion of Europe. All the 
European states were losing the flower of their manhood 
and piling up huge war debts. Their energies were turned 
from productive industries. Their shipping was being sunk 



322 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

by submarines or requisitioned for war purposes. This was 
the opportunity for Japanese commerce and shipping. It 
was also the first assurance Japan had ever been able to 
count upon that European aggression in the Far East need 
no longer cause fear. 

When Japan declared war against Germany, Berlin pro- 
tested at Peking against the landing of troops outside the 
leased zone, and also against the seizure by the Japanese 
army of the German railways in the Shantung Province. 
President Yuan sent a note to Japan and Great Britain in 
regard to the violation of Chinese neutrality; but he told 
Germany that it was impossible to prevent or oppose the 
action of the Japanese and the British. The Entente 
powers backed the Japanese contention that Japan was 
acting once more as the friend of China. If operations had 
not been undertaken against Kiau-chau, Germany would 
have used Kiau-chau as a naval base. The impotence of 
China to compel respect for her neutrality led to disregard 
of her neutrality. 

After the expulsion of the Germans from the Shantung 
peninsula, the Japanese installed themselves in the place 
of the Germans as they had done ten years before in the 
place of the Russians in the Liao-tung peninsula and south- 
ern Manchuria. They reopened Kiau-chau for trade on 
December 28. No Germans were left in the interior of the 
peninsula. But the Japanese continued to occupy mili- 
tarily the entire German railroad and mining concessions. 
China reminded Japan of the promise to restore Kiau-chau 
to its rightful owner. Japan answered that no promise 
had been given to China in this matter, but that the restora- 
tion of Chinese sovereignty was contemplated after the 
war. In the ultimatum to Germany it was true that Japan 
had called upon Germany to evacuate the lease in order 
that China might enter into possession of her sovereign 
rights. But Germany did not yield to the ultimatum. 
Japan had to fight to expel the Germans. The indirect 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH GERMANY (1914-1916) 323 

promise in the ultimatum would have bound Japan only if 
Germany had turned over the lease as a result of the 
ultimatum. 

Japan was not disposed to waste time in diplomatic nego- 
tiations with China. The European powers were at war. 
The United States, from the unbroken experience of the 
past, could be relied upon to limit interference to an aca- 
demic protest. 

On December 3, 1914, the Japanese minister at Peking 
was given the text of twenty-one demands for presentation 
to the Chinese government. They were divided into five 
groups. Minister Hioki was told that there was to be no 
compromise in regard to the demands of the first four 
groups. He was assured, to quote his instructions, that 
'^ believing it absolutely essential for strengthening Japan's 
position in eastern Asia, as well as for the preservation of 
the general interests of that region, to secure China's ad- 
herence to the foregoing proposals, the Imperial Govern- 
ment are determined to attain this end by all means within 
their power." 

The articles of the fifth group were also to be presented 
as demands, but could be modified. The Japanese minister 
held the twenty-one demands up his sleeve for six weeks, 
during which the Chinese foreign minister kept protesting 
against the decision of Japan to maintain a special military 
zone in Shantung and the seizure and holding of the rail- 
way traversing the province. 

On January 16, 1915, the Chinese government gave the 
Japanese minister a note pointing out that *'two months 
have elapsed since the capture of Tsing-tau; the base of 
German military preparations has been destroyed; the 
troops of Great Britain have already been and those of 
your country are being gradually withdrawn. This shows 
clearly that there is no more military action in the special 
area. That the said area ought to be restored to the con- 
trol of the local authorities admits of no doubt. ... As 



324 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

efforts have always been made to effect an amicable settle- 
ment of affairs between your country and ours, it is our 
earnest hope that your government will act upon the prin- 
ciple of preserving peace in the Far East and maintaining 
international confidence and friendship." 

In response the Japanese minister presented the twenty- 
one demands. The first group dealt with the province of 
Shantung, China was asked to agree in advance to what- 
ever arrangements should be made between Germany and 
Japan concerning "the disposition of all rights, interests, 
and concessions which Germany, by virtue of treaties or 
otherwise, possesses in relation to the province of Shan- 
tung." Japan claimed recognition of her inheritance of 
German rights to finance, construct, and supply materials 
for railways running from Shantung into Chih-li and 
Kiang-su, the two neighboring provinces to north and 
south. Group two demanded preferential rights, interests, 
and privileges for Japan and Japanese subjects in south 
Manchuria and eastern inner Mongolia, most important of 
which was the extension to ninety-nine years of the old 
Russian port and railway leases. In group three China 
was asked to agree to the exclusive exploitation by Japa- 
nese capitalists of the Han-Yeh-Ping Company, an impor- 
tant iron-works in the Yangtze Valley. Group four con- 
tained the single demand of a formal declaration by China 
that "no bay, harbor, or island along the coast of China 
be ceded or leased to any Power." The fifth group related 
to the employment of Japanese advisers in political and 
financial and military affairs ; the purchase from Japan of 
fifty per cent, or more of her munitions of war; railway 
rights ; Japanese missionary propaganda ; and a veto power 
against foreign concessions being granted in the province 
of Fukien. 

China called the world to witness that Japan was trying 
to accomplish against her the very things the Entente 
powers, of whose alliance Japan was a member, said they 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH GERMANY (1914-1916) 325 

were fighting to prevent Germany from doing to European 
neighbors. There was the usual mild protest from 
America. But the European powers, while demurring for 
form's sake, promised Japan secretly that they would not 
interfere with her ambitions in China. She could go ahead 
and treat China as she pleased, subject only to the caution 
of not harming French and British interests in the empire. 
Japan was urged also to come to an agreement with Eus- 
sia about the spoils. 

With the assurance that the Entente powers were behind 
her — or that they would not oppose her — Japan cut short 
China's protests by an ultimatum delivered on May 7, 
1915. It was modeled on the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum 
to Serbia of the previous year. If China did not yield to 
all the demands of the first four groups and the Fukien 
demand of the fifth group in forty-eight hours, Japan 
would use force. The other demands of the fifth group 
were not insisted upon because some of them infringed 
upon the real or fancied privileges of Japan's allies in 
other parts of China. Before these screws were tightened, 
further negotiation was required with Great Britain and 
France and Russia. Again the United States sent a note. 
China, with no backing anywhere in the world, had to 
accept the demands of Japan or enter into war. On May 
25 a series of notes dictated by the Japanese minister at 
Peking and signed by the Chinese minister of foreign af- 
fairs gave Japan control of Shantung and put China in 
the hands of her island neighbor. 

To show the danger of secret diplomacy to the mainte- 
nance of good faith in international relations, we have no 
more convincing example than the negotiations between 
Japan and Russia in the summer of 1916. At the sugges- 
tion of the French and the British, who were nervous about 
the pro-German influence at Petrograd and wanted to do 
everything they could to propitiate the Russian Foreign 
Office, Japan came to an understanding with Russia. A 



326 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

treaty was signed at the beginning of July, 1916, which 
was given out to the press. It read as follows : 

**The Imperial Government of Japan and the Imperial 
Government of Russia, resolved to unite their efforts to 
the maintenance of lasting peace in the Far East, have 
agreed upon the following: 

^'Aeticle One: Japan will not be a party to any politi- 
cal arrangement or combination directed against Russia. 
Russia will not be a party to any political arrangement or 
combination directed against Japan. 

''Article Two: Should the territorial rights or the spe- 
cial interests in the Far East of one of the contracting 
parties recognized by the other contracting party be 
threatened, Japan and Russia will take counsel of each 
other as to the measures to be taken to provide for the sup- 
port or the help to be given in order to safeguard and de- 
fend those rights and interests." 

The British press considered the agreement highly sat- 
isfactory; and it was pointed out by the government in 
Parliament that Japan was not only acting fairly toward 
China and living up to the terms of the Anglo-Japanese 
treaty, but was also doing all she could to knit more closely 
the bonds uniting the powers at war with Germany. 

But after the Russian Revolution the archives of the 
Russian Foreign Office were published. A secret treaty, 
signed on July 3, 1916, was discovered. By its terms Rus- 
sia and Japan bound themselves mutually to safeguard 
China ''against the political domination of any third Power 
entertaining hostile designs against Russia or Japan." It 
was an offensive and defensive alliance, operating from 
the moment "any third power" should attack either Russia 
or Japan in their vested positions on Chinese territory. 
This treaty was a violation of the Anglo-Russian conven- 
tion of 1907 and of Article Three of the Anglo-Japanese 
treaty of alliance of July 13, 1911. As the contracting 
parties agreed that "the present convention shall be kept 
in complete secrecy from everybody, ' ' this evidence of bad 



JAPAN'S WAR WITH GERMANY (1914-1916) 327 

faith might never have come to light had it not been for 
the publication of the Russian archives.^ 

Without the knowledge of China, the Entente powers 
gave secret assurances (written except in the case of Italy) 
that when it came to signing peace with Germany, Japan 
should have the Shantung peninsula and the German 
islands north of the equator. These negotiations were car- 
ried on and terminated at the moment the United States 
was getting ready to enter the World War and to bring 
China with her to the aid of the Allies. The dates of the 
secret agreements are significant. They were signed be- 
tween the time America broke off diplomatic relations with 
Germany and the date when she declared war. There was 
need for haste. The Russian promise to Japan was given 
on February 20, following the British promise of February 
16. France's obligation to support Japan against China 
was signed on March 1. On March 28 the Italian minister 
of foreign affairs stated orally that ''the Italian govern- 
ment had no objection regarding the matter." The En- 
tente powers wanted to be able, when the peace conference 
assembled, to show the United States arrangements con- 
cluded before she became a belligerent. 

^ The archives of the ministry of foreign affairs were published by the 
soviet government from December, 1917, to March, 1918, in the Petrograd 
Izvestia; but Entente cable and newspaper censorship prevented the republica- 
tion in Entente countries during the war. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 

ON May 1, 1893, the World's Columbian Exposition 
was opened at Chicago. The three caravels of Co- 
lumbus, reproduced from ancient wood-cuts, bore witness 
to the small way in which Europe first became interested 
in the western hemisphere. To the millions of Americans 
who saw them, the caravels were symbolic of the miracles 
that had been accomplished in four hundred years. But 
to European visitors they signified the beginning of a 
movement of population from Europe which had not been 
to the profit of Europe. The developers of Caucasian 
civilization in the two American continents had cut loose 
from Europe politically and economically, had become self- 
sustaining, and were using the Old World merely as a 
source of man power and capital. 

Since the end of the Napoleonic era the new nations of 
the American continents had gradually become isolated. 
European political systems were no longer able to influence 
the destinies of America and to create and develop mar- 
kets through the imposition and maintenance of overlord- 
ship. The great colonizing powers turned elsewhere. 
Spain and Portugal were falling into decay. Holland had 
all she could do in managing the East Indies. France be- 
gan to colonize Africa. Great Britain, while her activities 
were world-wide, devoted her energies to Africa and Asia 
and allowed her colonists in America and other regions of 
the temperate zone to develop their own institutions ac- 
cording to their own interests with a degree of freedom 
that has come to mean virtual independence. 

The Chicago exposition was a world's fair in name only. 

328 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 329 

Although we asked the world to celebrate with us, the 
invitation was really given for the purpose of demonstrat- 
ing our self-sufficiency. We were not seeking political alli- 
ances or economic understandings; we had no surplus of 
food products or manufactured articles for which to find 
markets ; and American capital was not looking for invest- 
ment abroad. 

International fairs in European cities had political and 
economic aims to attain ; but we did not think of our coun- 
try as a partner in an organization known as the world, in 
which each member was dependent on the others, or at least 
affected in its security and prosperity by what affected the 
other members. What the European nations did in their 
own continent was no concern of ours, and we had not 
joined them in or made any effort to prevent them from 
exploiting Asia and Africa. 

We did not reahze that we were on the threshold of a 
new era and that the quarter of a century following the 
Columbian Exposition was to mark the end of our isola- 
tion, to thrust upon us colonial responsibilities, to involve 
us inextricably in the politics of the Far East, and to make 
us aware of the vital relation between our prosperity and 
security on the one hand and the problems of the European 
balance of power and the extension of European eminent 
domain on the other. We were to become a world power, 
not by accident, but because of the working out in our case 
of the economic laws that were already operative in 
Europe. 

During the thirty years following the Civil War the peo- 
ple of the United States still had within the limits of their 
own country opportunities for industrial and agricultural 
expansion, for colonization, for opening up new regions, 
and for the employment of capital, sufficient to absorb the 
energies of a rapidly growing nation. Despite a healthy 
increase in the native born, and an immigration that finally 
reached a million in one year, our capacity for consumption 



330 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

kept pace with our capacity for production. "We did not 
have to think of overseas markets, of colonizing areas, of 
mercantile marine, of holders of foreign bonds, of jobs on 
the pay-roll of weak states for men who could not or would 
not find work at home ; we did not have to worry over the 
aggressive colonial policies of rival nations ; and, having no 
potential enemies on our own continent and no colonies to 
defend and no goods to sell or loans to make to inferior 
peoples, we did not have to keep up a large army and navy. 
Although our national wealth had become half again as 
large, and our population twice as large, as that of Great 
Britain, our national debt was about one fifth of the British 
debt. We had spent and were spending nothing on account 
of world politics. w==«^^ 

When the United States began to have an excess of pro- ' ' 
duction over consumption, and when American capital be- 
came interested in foreign enterprises, we were made to 
realize how slight was the influence of the United States 
in world affairs. We had no colonial possessions, even in 
America, except Alaska, and no naval bases in the waters 
of our own continent. Aside from an interest in Samoa 
and an undefined connection with Hawaii, we had staked 
out no claims in the Pacific, and we were altogether with- 
out footholds in Asia and in Africa. The European nations 
were active all over the world. In our own neighborhood, 
Great Britain, Spain, France, Denmark, and Holland were 
installed along the route to South America and guarded 
the Atlantic approach of the canal that was planned to 
join the Atlantic and Pacific. In the closing years of the 
nineteenth century we awoke slightly to the reaUzation of 
the disadvantage of our international position, from the 
point of view of strategic and economic needs. But, as 
long as we did not actually feel the menace of any other 
nation or the effect on our pocket-books of having no for- 
eign policy, public opinion remained satisfied with isolation 
and was lethargic in the face of world changes and crises. 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 331 

The evolution of the United States from a self-sufficing 
and self-absorbed political organism on the North Ameri- 
can continent into a world power has not yet been com- 
pleted. Notwithstanding our participation in the World 
War and in the international conferences of the victorious 
powers, there is still a strong sentiment against ''foreign 
entanglements, ' ' and three and a half years of negotiations 
have not yet succeeded in committing us to the support 
of joint policies, regional or general, for the ordering of 
world affairs. But that we shall become a world power in 
the fullest implication of that term has been certain since 
April 6, 1917, when we declared war upon Germany, as it 
was inevitable from the day of our treaty with Spain. 

The story of the United States in world politics from 
1893 to 1917 falls under five heads: (1) acquisitions; (2) 
assertion of the doctrine of the open door; (3) effort to 
build up a merchant marine; (4) construction of a navy 
''second to none"; and (5) intervention in other countries. 

At the Chicago exposition there were no pavilions hous- 
ing the exhibits of American possessions or dependencies. 
All our acquisitions have come since 1893 by treaty, com- 
promise, conquest, and purchase. In 1898 we acquired by 
annexation the Hawaiian Islands, and by conquest Porto 
Rico, the Philippines, and Guam ; in 1899, by a compromise 
arranged with Germany, the eastern portion of the Samoan 
Islands, where we had already established a naval base in 
the harbor of Pagopago ; ^ in 1903, by purchase from 
Panama, the canal zone, together with five islands in 
Panama Bay, and by a lease from Cuba coaling and naval 
stations at Guantanamo and Bahia Honda; in 1914, by 
lease from Nicaragua, the Corn Islands and a naval base on 

^ Pagopago, on the island of Tutuila, was ceded to the United States for a 
naval and coaling station in 1872. The Samoan Islands were made neutral, 
with judicial extraterritoriality for foreigners, by the treaty of June 14, 1889, 
signed by the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. On November 14, 
1899, a second treaty of the three powers divided the islands between the 
United States and Germany, Great Britain receiving compensation from 
Germany elsewhere. 



332 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the mainland ; and in 1916, by purchase from Denmark, her 
islands in the West Indies, which have been renamed by 
us the Virgin Islands. 

With the exception of the Philippine Islands and Guam, 
these acquisitions had been frequently proposed, but had 
not previously materialized, in most instances because of 
the opposition of the Senate. The archives of the State 
Department, presidential messages, and congressional de- 
bates, between 1840 and 1876, contain frequent references 
to treaties, projects of treaties, and reports of negotiations 
concerning Samoa, Hawaii, Panama, Nicaragua, and the 
Spanish and Danish West Indies. Besides these ' 'foreign 
parts ' ' which eventually came under American sovereignty, 
the United States did not avail itself of opportunities to 
annex Salvador, Cuba, Yucatan, the Dominican Republic, 
and other small countries that at one time or another were 
not unwilling to surrender their sovereignty to us. Not 
until our Pacific states had become large and prosperous 
and Japan began to loom as a great power did we embark 
upon a policy of acquiring islands and coaling stations. 
For not until then did we realize the necessity of cutting 
the canal we had been talking about for half a century and 
of protecting its approaches and our trade routes to Asia. 

The war with Spain, in 1898, not only gave'us a place in 
the West Indies and in the eastern Pacific, but it thrust us 
into the Far East at a critical moment in the relations 
between China and the powers; it demonstrated the dis- 
advantages of our lack of a merchant marine and our small 
navy; and it involved us in intervention in China, Cuba, 
Panama, and elsewhere. 

The opportunity to reaffirm a traditional principle qf 
American foreign policy came to Secretary Hay shortly 
after the acquisition of the Philippines. In a note to the 
powers on September 6, 1899, he proposed equality of trade 
opportunity in China for all nations. ''The principle of 
equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) '333 

Empire" was reiterated on July 3, 1900.^ In the summer 
of 1903 the consent of China was secured to the opening 
of ports in Manchuria. In May and December, 1909, Sec- 
retary Knox attempted once more to maintain the open 
door in Manchuria. In 1906 the American delegates to the 
conference of Algeciras signed the treaty guaranteeing 
Morocco, with the reservation that the United States 
assumed no obligation or responsibility for its enforcement, 
and had had '*no desire or purpose in taking part in the 
conference other than to secure for all peoples the widest 
equality of trade and privileges in Morocco." Our par- 
ticipation in the Chinese and Moroccan questions, without 
any direct interest to defend or advance, demonstrates that 
the United States was beginning to feel, like Germany, that 
it was a vital function of foreign policy to insist that the 
door to trade on equal footing be not closed by further 
extension of European eminent domain in any part of the 
world. 

During the period of the Napoleonic wars, despite our 
losses as neutrals and as belligerents in the War of 1812, 
the American merchant marine' increased its sea-going ton- 
nage sevenfold, and in twenty years ships under American 
registry gradually took over trans-Atlantic trade until from 
' less than twenty-five per cent, the proportion of tonnage 
carried in American bottoms increased to ninety per cent. 
From 1815 to 1840 the United States could not only build 
but operate ships more cheaply than any European nation, 
and she therefore gradually outclassed British and all other 
operators of sailing-vessels. The American merchant ma- 
rine suffered a temporary setback by the introduction of 
steam-driven vessels between 1840 and 1850, but at the 
outbreak of the Civil War our steam fleet was nearly as 
large as that of Great Britain and was admittedly more 
efificient. 

The decade of the Civil War proved disastrous to the 

^See p. 144. 



334 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

American merchant marine. During four years of hos- 
tilities the demands of war on ships and on both seamen 
and landsmen destroyed a large part of the shipping and 
diverted its personnel to other activities. Had our na- 
tional prosperity remained even in a limited measure de- 
pendent upon the carrying trade, the merchant marine 
would have rivaled Great Britain's again within ten years. 
But after the war our energies were devoted to railway- 
building and to the development of the middle west and 
the Pacific coast. The vast interior of the American con- 
tinent was opened up, and capital and labor found other 
channels of productive effort to replace what the carrying 
trade had brought them. Another factor in the failure to 
rehabilitate our shipping was the absence of coal and iron 
at tide-water. 

As long as the nation did not feel dependent upon 
American-controlled shipping for prosperity and security, 
pride in the American flag and the halo of tradition did 
not revive the shipping industry. The granting of sub- 
sidies, the means used by the European nations for develop- 
ing their merchant marine, has always been opposed by 
American pubUc sentiment, and maritime legislation at 
Washington has hindered rather than encouraged the 
renascence of our international carrying trade. By the 
exclusion of ships of foreign registry from carrying freight 
or passengers between American ports, our coastwise trade 
was saved from the paralyzing effect of laws that made 
operation much more costly for Ame'rican ship-owners than 
for those of any other nation. But in international trade, 
where there was competition, there was no hope for ships 
of American registry. 

After the outbreak of the World War our export trade, 
which had never before been important enough to make 
serious aid to the growth of American shipping seem worth 
while, developed rapidly, and within two years the Ameri- 
can people began to see the disadvantage of dependence 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 33§ 

upon foreign vessels. The nations that had furnished most 
of our shipping were using their ships for war purposes, 
and they had available only sufficient tonnage to carry what 
products of ours they needed for military purposes. In 
the meantime their own export trade had diminished, and 
the opportunities were unlimited for American products to 
get in on the ground floor in every country outside Europe. 
But we did not have shipping that could be controlled for 
the purpose of promoting our own interests. This awaken- 
ing led to the passage of a shipping act on September 7, 
1916, for the promotion and development of the American 
merchant marine. A shipping board was created to con- 
struct ships, with fifty million dollars of capital, to be 
derived from the sale of Panama Canal bonds not yet 
put on the market by the United States treasury. The 
board had hardly been organized when our entry into 
the war led Congress to consent to unlimited expenditure 
for the purpose of the rapid construction of merchant- 
ships. 

The American navy acquitted itself with great credit in 
the Spanish- American War; but public opinion realized 
that it was the weakness of the Spaniards rather than the 
strength of the Americans that gave us the victory. Our 
fleet was divided, and there was no way to pass from one 
ocean to the other. To reinforce the Atlantic fleet the 
battleship Oregon had steamed all the way around Cape 
Horn. Dewey's fleet was in the Philippines. Our Pacific 
coast was without protection. Had Germany or France 
joined Spain the situation would have been serious. It 
soon became known that we had actually been dependent 
upon the good-will of Great Britain, which was fortunately 
manifested on our side in at least one crisis of the war. 
The experience of 1898 led the American people to deter- 
mine that the canal connecting the two oceans must be cut 
at the earliest possible moment, and that the naval budget 
must be increased to provide for the building of ships suf- 



336 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ficient in number and armament to protect both coasts in 
the event of war. 

Immediately after the Spanish- American War other fac- 
tors came in to influence the United States to construct a 
large fleet. Great Britain and Germany adopted ambitious 
naval programs. Russia was building two fleets with 
French money. Japan was beginning to loom up as a 
strong naval power in the Pacific. We had annexed Hawaii 
and Porto Rico ; we had assumed responsibility for Cuba ; 
and the extensive Philippine archipelago, a fortnight 's sail- 
ing distance from our nearest Pacific naval base, was ours 
for better or for worse. We had scarcely begun building 
our new navy when the victories of Japan over Russia 
proved that the Japanese could not be ignored. If we were 
to hold the Philippines and Hawaii we must be able to 
defend them. The Panama Canal and the West Indies 
entailed responsibilities in event of a European war, no 
matter how the powers were alined. When the World War 
finally broke out we were probably more impotent to 
enforce our neutral rights on the high seas than we had 
been a hundred years before. Great Britain interfered 
with our trade ; Germany began a submarine warfare and 
threatened to sink our shipping without warning. After 
the battle of Jutland the United States decided to build a 
fleet ''second to none." Supremacy of the sea was not 
aimed at, but we determined to have equality of sea power 
with the strongest naval power. In July, 1916, Congress 
adopted a naval program providing for the immediate con- 
struction of eight new capital ships and a large number of 
minor craft, at a cost that the representatives of the people 
would not have dared to sanction a few years earlier. It 
was a logical, an inevitable, step. The possession of the 
Philippines involved us in the Far East. Our foreign trade 
was becoming precious to us, and we were dreaming of a 
merchant marine. 

Up to 1898, the policy of abstaining from intervention in 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 337 

internal political affairs of other countries had always had 
the support of American public opinion and had been scru- 
pulously followed, with the single exception of the quarrel 
between Mexico and Texas.^ Opportunities and occasions 
for intervention had been frequent, especially in Latin 
America, and there were times when European nations in- 
timated to us that the Monroe Doctrine, which denied it to 
them, imposed upon us the obligation of intervention. But 
we interpreted the Monroe Doctrine in a negative sense, 
and stood steadfastly for non-intervention.^ The cry for 
aid came even from oppressed peoples in Europe, and 
plausible arguments were advanced to the effect that the 
boon of liberty we enjoyed ought to make us willing to 
help others secure it, notably in the case of Hungary, when 
Kossuth visited the United States. The three considera- 
tions that kept us out of the French Revolution, however, 
invariably prevailed : that every nation had a right to work 
out its own salvation, irrespective of its size, religious 
beliefs, or political conceptions; that any intervention 
would involve us in Old World politics and political 
methods and systems ; and that our national interests would 
be best served by minding our own business. Consequently 
intervention in Cuba, which led to the Spanish-American 
War, denoted an epoch-making abandonment of traditional 
policy. 

We could not claim that the motive for intervention was 
solely to free the Cubans from the yoke of Spain ; Spanish 
misrule and oppression had been known to us for many 
years and at several times had reached as bad a state as 
during the period preceding the war of 1898. But the 
changing conditions in the relations of the United States 
with the rest of the world made us believe that a free and 

^ The Mexican War was bitterly opposed by prominent Americans (witness 
the speeches in Congress and Lowell's "Biglow Papers"), and, despite its 
benefits, has not been regarded as a creditable exploit by American historians. 

^For a discussion of the Monroe Doctrine, and our relations during this 
period with Latin-American peoples, see Chapter XXX. 



338 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tranquil Cuba was essential to our national security and 
prosperity. We promised not to annex Cuba, and we did 
not do so. But Cuban independence was established only 
with the stipulation that the United States should have the 
right to intervene at any time Washington believed inter- 
vention was necessary to defend Cuba against foreign 
aggression or to straighten out her internal political and 
economic affairs. It was a veiled protectorate, confirmed 
by the lease of two naval bases and the annexation of 
Porto Eico. 

As a result of the Spanish-American War the United 
States became involved in Porto Rico and the Philippine 
Islands. We did not think it was to our interest — or to 
theirs — to give the peoples of these islands independence. 
Nor did we grant them American citizenship.^ Our rela- 
tions with them, owing to the lack of a constitutional pro- 
vision to cover colonies or protectorates, has been anoma- 
lous ever since, and the United States has been led into 
methods of colonial administration and into military under- 
takings contrary to the ideals of self-determination of peo- 
ples that had been advocated up to that time by American 
public opinion.- 

The policy of non-intervention has not since been rees- 
tablished, for the assuming of one obligation led us on to 

^A limited form of responsible government was granted to the Filipinos by 
the act of 1916 in which Congress promised also ultimate independence. The 
Porto Eicaus were made American citizens and granted representative govern- 
ment by the act of 1917. Porto Eico is definitely incorporated in the United 
States. There is difference of opinion in both Eepubliean and Democratic 
parties as to the political status of the Philippine Islands, and as to what 
should be the permanent future relations, if any, between the archipelago and 
the United States, although only Democratic platforms have advocated 
autonomy or independence for the Filipinos. 

^ There was not at any time, however, a feeling that we should go to war 
to assert this right, until the Cuban propaganda swept the country prior to 
the Spanish-American War. Even then, helping others to win their freedom 
■was a justification rather than a cause for war. Our sympathy with subject 
peoples was platonic, even though expressed with much effervescence. We 
had sympathized with Kossuth in Hungary, Emmet in Ireland, Garibaldi in 
Italy," and the Poles in 1830 and 1863. Jane Porter's "Thaddeus of Warsaw" 
and William Ware's "Toussaint Louverture " were favorite classics of 
American childhood, because tiiiey breathed the spirit of our Declaration of 
Independence. 



UNITED STATES IN WORLD POLITICS (1893-1917) 339 

others. In 1900 we participated in the intervention of the 
powers in China, and American troops have been stationed 
in China for more than twenty years. In 1903 we inter- 
vened in the insurrection of the province of Panama against 
Colombia and prevented the Colombian troops from attack- 
ing the rebels. We have been on the Isthmus of Panama 
ever since. In 1905 we began to intervene in Santo Do- 
mingo, and during the World War took over the govern- 
ment of Santo Domingo and Haiti. In 1912 American 
marines were landed in Nicaragua, and detachments oc- 
cupied the capital. In 1913 and 1916 American naval and 
military forces intervened in Mexico. 

As in Cuba, the chain of events or specific incidents that 
brought about intervention in these various countries were 
not markedly different from events or incidents that had 
occurred over and over again during the first century of 
American history. But European and American invest- 
ments had increased very greatly in the West Indies, Cen- 
tral America, and China. There were concession-holders 
and bondholders to be protected, and considerable trade 
interests at stake. As long as these had been negligible our 
State Department avoided intervention. But non-interven- 
tion is not possible in the diplomacy of a world power. 
When we became a world power, therefore, we began to 
intervene where our interests lay, and public opinion, con- 
scious of these interests, approved what it had formerly 
condemned when other nations had done the same thing. 



CHAPTER XXX 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE LATIN-AMEEICAN REPUBLICS 

(1893-1917) 

THE first effort of the United States to bring together 
the nations of the New World that they might talk 
over their common interests was made by Secretary Blaine 
in 1881, when the independent comitries of North and South 
America were invited to participate in a general conference 
in Washington "for the purpose of considering and dis- 
cussing the methods of preventing war between the nations 
of America." But Chile and Peru, then in the midst of a 
bitter war, were not disposed to accept this opportunity for 
pan- American arbitration, and all the invitations were with- 
drawn. Eight years later, when Mr. Blaine was again sec- 
retary of state, he had the honor of presiding over the 
opening session of the first Pan-American Conference. 
Except for the establishment of the Bureau of American 
Republics in Washington, little was accomplished in form- 
ulating common American policies. The Latin republics 
were jealous and suspicious of the United States and com- 
bined to defeat even the most harmless proposals. That 
bad feeling had been aroused by the conference was dem- 
onstrated shortly afterward, when our vigorous represen- 
tations to Chile, because of the killing of American sailors 
at Valparaiso, were resented throughout South and Central 
America. We were accused of having tried to intervene 
in a domestic quarrel. 

It was twelve years before the second conference as- 
sembled in Mexico City to arrange the conditions under 
which all American countries were to become signatories 
of the Hague convention of 1899, The third conference, 

340 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 341 

in Eio de Janeiro in 1906, was called together principally 
to deliberate upon participation in the second Hague con- 
vention. At Buenos Aires, in 1910, the scope of the Wash- 
ington bureau was enlarged and its name was changed to 
the Pan-American Bureau. The fifth conference was to 
have been held in Santiago, Chile, in 1914, but was post- 
poned on account of the war. 

Until the United States began to be interested in an 
Atlantic-Pacific canal, due to the rapid development of the 
far west, and the government became nervous over the pos- 
sibility of a fresh attempt to extend the working of Euro- 
pean economic imperialism to America, virtually nothing 
was done, officially or privately, to take advantage of our 
propinquity to the Latin-American states. We had no 
direct steamship or cable communications with South 
America, and connections with the West Indies and Cen- 
tral America only by fruit and tourist steamers. American 
banks did not function in Latin America, whose countries 
found the capital for railway and port development and 
equipment and for commercial and mining enterprises in 
European markets. Our trade with South America was 
negligible. Engrossed in our own affairs, we paid hardly 
more attention to the rest of America than to Africa and 
Asia. 

In 1895 a sudden change came when President Cleveland 
declared that the Monroe Doctrine was a vital American 
policy and that the people of the United States would 
enforce it. Great Britain had been carrying on a boundary 
dispute with Venezuela for half a century. It had never 
been settled because the British Foreign Office insisted on 
the outright surrender of most of the territory before a 
joint boundary commission was formed. The issue in itself 
was not an important one, and there was no reason to be- 
lieve that the British had a bad case. But the revival of 
British imperialism, which other nations were imitating, 
seemed to necessitate strong action on the part of the 



342 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

United States, unless we were prepared to allow the Euro- 
pean nations to deal with Latin-Americans as they dealt 
with Asiatic and African peoples. For the sake of making 
a test, President Cleveland requested Great Britain to 
arbitrate her difference with Venezuela, basing his inter- 
vention upon the Monroe Doctrine. On November 26, 1895, 
Great Britain replied, rejecting our assumption that the 
Monroe Doctrine had any international significance and 
especially repudiating the principle that ''American ques- 
tions are for American discussion"; on these grounds she 
refused to arbitrate. 

On December 17 the president submitted the correspon- 
dence to Congress, recommending the sending of a com- 
mission to look into the merits of the case, and stating the 
right and intention of the United States to adjudicate the 
dispute. Said Mr. Cleveland: 

''It will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States 
to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression 
upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great 
Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jur- 
isdiction over any territory which after investigation we 
have determined of right belongs to Venezuela. In mak- 
ing these recommendations I am fully alive to the respon- 
sibility incurred and keenly realize all the consequences 
that may follow. ' ' 

Although the Tory press in England was eager to take 
up the challenge, the imperial problems arising in the 
Sudan and South Africa, and the strained relations with 
France and Russia, made the government decide to yield 
to the peremptory American demand.^ The Venezuela 
boundary question was submitted to arbitration. War with 
the United States was repugnant to the British people and 
would have resulted in the loss of Canada. British states- 
men and intelligent public opinion realized, also, that 
Cleveland's action had a deeper significance than the set- 

»See p. 168. 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 343 

tlement of the question that prompted it. The assertion 
of the Monroe Doctrine for the first time with specific 
legislative indorsement indicated that the United States 
had reached a stage where isolation was no longer pos- 
sible. The canal, when built, must be protected. The 
United States could not afford to have any European 
nation exercising a political influence equal or superior to 
hers in South America. For seventy years the Monroe 
Doctrine had never been seriously challenged, because 
Europeans had a free field in Africa and Asia. And now 
that they were beginning to look elsewhere the United 
States had become strong enough to accept ''the respon- 
sibility incurred" and ''all the consequences that may 
follow." 
J. "* Seven years later, when conditions had greatly changed 
«^^to the advantage of the United States, Great Britain, in 
y^ conjunction with Germany and Italy, tested the Monroe 
Doctrine. A joint naval demonstration was made against 
Venezuela to force her to acknowledge and agree to pay a 
number of claims. The United States intervened, and, 
when the powers were assured that Venezuela would recog- 
nize the claims and refer them to commissions, Great 
Britain and Italy withdrew. Germany seemed disposed to 
continue the demonstration, but recalled her fleet when 
President Roosevelt told the German ambassador that the 
maintenance of the blockade might lead to war. 

The United States opposed the transfer of Cuba from 
Spain to France in 1826 and to Great Britain in 1839 and 
1843. We tried to purchase Cuba in 1848, and the first 
filibustering expedition took place the following year. The 
Cuban question was a national issue in the presidential 
election of 1856, and in 1859 Congress again debated the 
purchase of the island. Between the Mexican "War and the 
Civil War the canal question was a consideration in our 
policy towards Cuba, but the desire of the southern states 
to extend slave territory, or at least to prevent emancipa- 



M4 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tion in the island if Cuba passed into British or French 
bands, was undoubtedly the principal motive of the agita- 
tion for annexation. After the Civil War the issue of 
slavery disappeared from American internal politics, and 
the canal question was held in abeyance during thirty years 
of transcontinental railway construction. 

American public opinion came to regard an Atlantic- 
Pacific canal as essential to the prosperity of the United 
States; the status of Cuba and the Hawaiian Islands and 
the freedom of Latin- American countries bordering on the 
Caribbean Sea became the principal issues in foreign 
policy. Plans were made for the annexation of Hawaii. 
The nation stood behind President Cleveland when he or- 
dered marines to Bluefields in Nicaragua in 1894, after 
news had come of a British landing, and when he challenged 
Great Britain on the Venezuelan question. The news- 
papers began to feature the Cuban insurrection of 1895, 
and, although Cleveland stood resolutely against the prop- 
aganda for war with Spain, a state of mind was gradually 
created that needed only an exciting pretext to make war 
inevitable. It was amply furnished by a tragic disaster 
that public opinion interpreted, without waiting for proof, 
as an overt act. On February 15, 1898, at the end of the 
second year of McKinley's first administration, the battle- 
ship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor. On April 
19 Congress decided that the United States had to fight to 
free Cuba. 

The short and one-sided war ended in the peace protocol 
of August 12, by which Spain agreed to evacuate Cuba and 
the Philippines and relinquish Spanish sovereignty over 
them, and to cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrones to 
the United States in lieu of indemnity. On the same day 
the Hawaiian Islands were formally annexed to the United 
States. The treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, 
confirmed the cession of Porto Rico and Guam and the 
independence of Cuba, and relinquished to the United 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 345 

States the Philippine Islands for a cash payment of twenty 
million dollars. 

The Spanish-American War established the hegemony 
of the United States in the western hemisphere. It caused 
a change not only in our own relations, but also in the rela- 
tions of European powers, with Latin America. The pre- 
dominant cultural influence of Europe persisted, however, 
and the United States was not yet ready to assert her com- 
mercial and financial ascendency in Latin-American affairs. 
Much groundwork, neglected up to this time, had to be done. 
Direct cable and steamship communications and banking 
facilities were still lacking. These had to await the time 
when American finance and industry needed foreign fields 
for investment and markets for trade. During the first 
two decades of the twentieth century the increasing wealth 
and population of the United States automatically 
strengthened her power and prestige, which received a 
striking opportunity to prove itself in the World War. 
But certain deliberate forces were also working to estab- 
lish political conditions that would render unquestioned 
the control of the American continents by the United 
States. 

The most important factor in maintaining the advan- 
tages won by the Spanish-American War was our navy. 
When we look back to the "great white fleet" that won the 
battle of Santiago and to the Pacific squadron that de- 
stroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay, and compare the 
ships of Sampson and Dewey with those of a quarter of a 
century later, we wonder how President Cleveland dared 
to fling the Monroe Doctrine into Great Britain's face. It 
was fortunate that decadent Spain was the European power 
with which we had to fixght. However, we were sobered 
rather than dazzled by our easy victory. From 1898 to 
1922 the American people spent at times in a single year 
more money on naval armament than during the previous 
half -century, and they finally reached a position where 



346 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Great Britain had to agree to the principle of equality of 
sea power.^ Most of the ships were kept in American 
waters, and after the opening of the Panama Canal the 
naval power of the United States in the western hemi- 
sphere had passed the point where it could be challenged. 
And yet, sixteen years earlier the Oregon had had to steam 
ten thousand miles around South America to join the At- 
lantic Squadron, making the long voyage not only because 
there was no canal, but also because it was believed that a 
single ship might make the difference between victory and 
defeat in a battle with the Spanish. 

The South American republics made no attempt to follow 
the example of the United States in building capital ships. 
Between the Spanish-American War and 1917 Argentina 
and Chile acquired no new capital ships. In 1917 the 
Argentine navy had seven ships, totaling 35,000 tons, all 
of them old. Chile had two battle-ships, two armored 
cruisers, and four cruisers, the newest of which was laid 
down in 1898. No unit of the Chilean navy was over 9000 
tons. Brazil laid down two dreadnoughts of 20,000 tons 
each and two protected cruisers of 3500 tons each in 1907, 
but made no increases during the next decade. Practically 
speaking, therefore, the republics of Latin America were 
completely at the mercy of the United States, and, even 
had they been disposed to do so, they could have formed 
a feasible coalition with no other European power than 
Great Britain. 

Next to the navy, the Panama Canal is responsible for 
the predominant position of the United States in the west- 
ern world. According to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 
1850 the Atlantic-Pacific canal was to be constructed by a 
private corporation. In 1884 a French company under de 
Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, began to cut through 
the Isthmus of Panama. After four years, three hundred 

* In the agreement for limitation of naval armaments, signed during the 
Washington conference, February, 1922. 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 347 

million dollars had been spent and only one third of the 
work was completed. The enterprise collapsed. 

When the United States again became interested in the 
canal project, the necessity of negotiating with Great 
Britain for a revision of the treaty of 1850 was recognized. 
We were not then in the same position as at the time of the 
earlier agreement. President Buchanan had been able to 
prevent Great Britain from following in Central America 
"^the policy which" (in Buchanan's own words) ''she has 
uniformly pursued throughout her history, of seizing upon 
every available commercial point in the world whenever 
circumstances have placed it within her power." But it 
was at the price of assenting to international control of 
the proposed canal. The American State Department 
pointed out that the canal was different from a natural 
waterway and that Great Britain herself had seized Egypt 
to control the Suez Canal. It was declared that if the 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty were not revised, the United States, 
on the ground of the Monroe Doctrine, would oppose and 
prevent either international or private European control of 
an Atlantic-Pacific canal. The American government of- 
fered to allow the canal to be built by a private corporation 
exclusively controlled by the United States or to construct 
and operate the canal itself. The British government not 
only refused to revise the treaty, but also endeavored to 
block the United States by an agreement with the Panama 
Company and by scheming to establish a protectorate over 
the Indians of the Mosquito Coast through whose country 
the alternate Nicaragua route passed. 

The firmness shown by President Cleveland in the 
Venezuela boundary question and the sweeping victory 
over Spain convinced the British that the canal would 
never be built if the Clayton-Bulwer treaty continued to 
tie the United States hand and foot. Secretary Hay suc- 
ceeded in negotiating a new treaty, which was signed in 
1900, This Hay-Pauncef ote treaty provided for a neutral- 



348 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ized canal under American government ownership, and 
rules for control were stipulated like those for the Suez 
Canal. The Senate refused to ratify the treaty until Great 
Britain admitted that the neutralization would be enforced 
by the United States alone, and was not to be interpreted 
as depriving the United States of power to police the canal. 
The Senate also rejected the clause forbidding fortifica- 
tion. Under the pressure of shipping interests, Great 
Britain finally compromised and agreed to these modifica- 
tions. The important clause, in British eyes, was that 
which promised no discrimination in tolls. 

After the British had been satisfied, the United States 
had still to negotiate with the Panama Canal Company and 
the Colombian government. Because of our ability to 
frighten it with the Nicaragua alternative, which was 
authorized by Congress, the French company finally agreed 
to sell out its rights at a reasonable figure. The offer was 
accepted with the proviso that the money would be paid 
only if and when the Republic of Colombia gave to the 
United States perpetual authority and jurisdiction over a 
strip across the Isthmus of Panama not less than six miles 
in width. A treaty was made with Colombia for a canal 
zone on the basis of a payment in cash and an annuity. 
When the Colombian Senate, acting as the American Senate 
has so often acted in the case of treaties, refused to ratify 
the agreement, the officials of the French canal company, 
desperate over the possible loss of a portion of their invest- 
ment that might be retrieved, organized a revolution in 
Panama. The United States refused to permit the Colom- 
bian troops to put do\vn the revolt, and President Roose- 
velt immediately recognized the new "Republic of 
Panama. ' ' The only comment that can be made upon this 
affair is that the American government showed great apti- 
tude for the science of world politics. Roosevelt after- 
wards declared that the end justified the means, and that 
if he had allowed Colombia to exercise her sovereign rights 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 349 

the construction of the canal would have been delayed 
indefinitely. 

On February 23, 1904, the United States Senate ratified 
a new canal convention, this time with the Republic of 
Panama, agreeing to give to Panama the same financial 
compensation as that which had been offered to Colombia. 
The canal zone, however, was widened to ten miles. After 
ten years, on August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal, financed, 
constructed, owned, and managed by the United States, 
was opened to the commerce of the world. It was built on 
American territory, subject only to a perpetual annual 
ground-rent of $250,000. The ports at either end had 
become virtually American, and the canal was heavily for- 
tified. The only restrictions imposed upon the United 
States are those of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which have 
been differently interpreted by successive American admin- 
istrations.^ 

Nearly twenty-five per cent, of the world's present oil 
production stands to the credit of Mexico. This fact, 
coupled with the extensive American and European mining 
investments of the past quarter century, has radically 
changed the tenor of the relations between the United 
States and her southern neighbor. As long as the outside 
world did not know, or need, the unrivaled oil and mineral 
resources of Mexico her internal quarrels were of no con- 
sequence, and the United States was able to abide by the 
Jeffersonian principle that ''all governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed." But when 
European and American investors in enterprises in Mexico 
found themselves injured in their prosperity by the politi- 

* From the beginning of the renewal of the Atlantic-Pacific project the 
various questions that arose were complicated by considerations and conflicting 
motives. Whether the Nicaragua or Panama route should be chosen; whether 
the canal should be constructed at sea-level or with locks; whether President 
Eoosevelt's policy in regard to the Panama Revolution was justified or should 
be condemned by an apology, with indemnity, to Colombia; and whether the 
rebates to American ships engaged in coastal trade constituted a violation of 
the Hay-Pauncefote treaty or followed the letter and spirit of the agreement — 
these were all moot questions on which public opinion was divided. 



350 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

cal evolution of the Mexican people, which led to a struggle 
against absolutism and to changes of government by vio- 
lence, the American government was placed in an embar- 
Tassing position. 

The United States had never followed the policy of Euro- 
pean governments in regard to the protection of the lives 
and property of their nationals in non-European countries 
by using force when diplomatic representations failed. On 
the other hand, this policy had been condemned by us on 
the ground that the strong were unable to resist the temp- 
tation of settling differences to suit their own interests and 
of using them as a pretext for extending their political and 
economic domination over weak peoples. 

The Monroe Doctrine had prevented the extension of 
European political control over the Latin- American repub- 
lics. But American trade and investment interests had 
been small and had meant little or nothing to our national 
prosperity. When a state of anarchy developed in Mexico, 
we realized for the first time how strong were the influ- 
ences that had inspired and directed this European atti- 
tude. For we had a large stake in Mexico. Moreover, did 
not the Monroe Doctrine obligate us, since we denied that 
right to Europe, to protect the lives and property of Euro- 
peans in American countries? At the outbreak of the 
European war a concrete illustration of the dilemma was 
forced upon us. The largest source of oil supply for the 
British navy was in the Tampico region of Mexico. If this 
were diminished or cut off by internal Mexican revolutions, 
did we have the right to forbid the British government to 
intervene and at the same time not assume the obligation 
of seeing that British companies were protected in pro- 
ducing oil from their own wells'? 

International obligations, as well as our own internal 
economic interests, required the occupation of Vera Cruz 
by the American navy in 1914 and a punitive military expe- 
dition against General Villa in 1916. But President Wilson 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 351 

was determined not to be stampeded into a war against 
Mexico, especially as he felt that the political unrest was 
due to a legitimate effort of the Mexican people to estab- 
lish a democratic form of government. American interven- 
tion in Europe, and its aftermath, prevented the Mexican 
crisis from becoming, in the minds of American people, too 
acute for peaceful settlement. Burdened with debts and 
international problems, and weary of military service and 
war, the American people are no longer moved by the 
propaganda for intervention in Mexico.^ But the question 
will come to the fore again within a few years unless the 
Mexicans are able to find statesmen who will unite the 
country and put an end to the revolutions and consequent 
economic disorganization that make insecure the lives and 
profitless the investments of foreigners. 

After the Spanish- American War, Cuba, although inde- 
pendent, remained under the tutelage of the United States, 
and Porto Rico became American territory. The Virgin 
Islands were acquired by purchase from Denmark in 1917. 
This development has led the United States along the path 
followed by other powers when they have established their 
sovereignty in regions away from home. Each new as- 
sumption of overlordship leads to others. The status of 
adjacent countries, and what is happening there, interests 
the colonial power, and the excuse is easily found for 
intervention. 

Within a decade of the annexation of Porto Rico the 
United States intervened in Santo Domingo, and within 
another decade we found ourselves occupying Haiti, sup- 

^ The Harding administration has followed the policy of the Wilson ad- 
ministration in withholding recognition of the government of President 
Obregon on the ground that article XXVII of the new Mexican constitution 
is an infringement upon private property rights. President Obregon haa 
declared: "Every private right acquired prior to May 1, 1917, when the new 
constitution was adopted, will be respected and fully protected. ' ' The 
American State Department does not seem to trust this pledge. Secretary 
Hughes has explained the Mexican situation in the following words : ' ' The 
fundamental question which confronts the government of the United States 
in considering its relations with Mexico is the safeguarding of property rights 
against confiscation. ' ' 



352 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

pressing the legislature, and proclaiming martial law.^ 
Thus the three republics of the West Indies, before the 
close of the second Wilson administration, had become 
virtual American protectorates. At the same time, north- 
ward from the canal zone the preponderant influence of 
the United States began to be felt in the Central American 
republics. The State Department now informs the Central 
American countries how they should act towards each other, 
and if the peremptory advice is not followed, war-ships 
appear in the offing and marines are landed.^ 

After studying the map of the islands that stretch from 
Florida to Venezuela the new American imperialist is 
alarmed when he sees that Cuba is flanked on the north by 
the Bahamas and on the south by Jamaica and the three 
Caymans. At the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea he 
finds Great Britain and France in control of the Leeward 
and Windward Islands, and Holland off the north coast of 
Venezuela. The events of the past twenty years have 
caused American public opinion, which formerly did not 
bother about Cuba, to resent the presence of European 
powers in our Caribbean Sea. The great Caribbean power 
is the United States, and, because the Panama Canal must 
be protected and European intrigues anticipated, the inde- 
pendent countries and islands of the West Indies and the 
Caribbean coast must allow Washington to supervise both 
their foreign and internal affairs, and New York to manage 
their finances and economic life. The proposition has been 
advanced that we buy out British and French interests in 
the West Indies by canceling a portion of the war debts. 
In point of fact, the continued presence of the British and 
the French in the West Indies is of no importance, now 

»See p. 339. 

^Shortly after the administration of Harding: succeeded that of Wilson, 
Secretary Hughes sent a note of this character to Costa Eiea in regard to a 
border dispute with Panama. The State department still re<;ards Nicaragua 
as a virtual protectorate, and we hear the European diplomatic expression 
'■'special interests" used to justify certain measures infringing on Nicaraguan 
sovereignty. 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 353 

that American naval supremacy in the western hemisphere 
is assured. Since the Spanish-American War the United 
States controls the communications of Mexico and Central 
America with the outside world, and is in a position to 
invade Mexico by land from the south through Guatemala. 

In South America, however, the United States is only 
potentially the dominant power. Until recently most of 
the intercourse of South American countries with the out- 
side world was with Europe and by means of Europe. 
Although they profited by the Monroe Doctrine and appre- 
ciated what it meant to them. South Americans were sus- 
picious and afraid of their powerful North American 
friend. In the Pan-American conferences they combined to 
defeat suggestions of the United States sometimes simply 
because of their source. Our dealings with Mexico and 
Colombia, and of late years with Haiti and Santo Domingo, 
have aw^akened justifiable fears of the intention of the 
United States to dictate in South America as Great Britain, 
France, and Kussia have been dictating in Asia and Great 
Britain and France in Africa. All the states but one are 
of Spanish origin. They sympathized with Spain during 
the war of 1898. Their language, customs, affinities tend 
to keep them aloof from us. The only rapprochement with 
North America is that of common interests — a field that 
has not yet been much developed. As is natural for weaker 
states, they are not inclined to accept our leadership, moral 
or material, with the eagerness we think they ought to 
manifest. 

In 1916 President Wilson proposed that the independent 
states of America unite in guaranteeing to each other 
'^absolute political independence and territorial integrity" 
and give mutual promises to abstain from, settling disputes 
except by arbitration, and to prevent aid either in arms or 
in men from being given to foment and encourage political 
revolutions in neighboring states. The South American 
press retorted with the principle of Grotius, i. e., that 



354 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

equality was the basis of sovereignty and of free coopera- 
tion of states. American diplomacy in Santo Domingo and 
Haiti, and the unpleasant story connected with the birth 
of the Republic of Panama, seemed to belie the worth of 
the mutual guaranty, where one of the parties was so much 
stronger than the others, unless it was based upon the domi- 
nation of that power. 

Of the eight Latin-American republics that entered the 
war, three were under American tutelage (Cuba, Haiti, 
and Panama) and four were dominated by the United 
States (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua). 
Only Brazil, of all the South American states, entered the 
war, and had a seat at the peace conference. 

The Monroe Doctrine was incorrectly described (and 
recognized) in the covenant of the League of Nations as a 
"regional understanding." It is not an understanding, 
however, but a unilateral declaration of policy on the part 
of the United States, promulgated as a measure of security 
and not as a blanket assurance of protection to weak states 
or as a bid for a spheres-of-influence arrangement with 
other powers. The regional understandings, such as the 
Anglo-French agreement of 1904, the Anglo-Russian agree- 
ment of 1907, and the various conventions among the Euro- 
pean powers in regard to Africa and Asia (notably the 
Sudan, Congo, and China conventions), were reciprocal 
compacts, based on a quid pro quo. The Monroe Doctrine, 
on the other hand, was negative in character, and was not 
interpreted by the United States to give our government a 
right to oppose, as the regional understandings of Euro- 
pean diplomacy did, the efforts of nationals of European 
powers to seek concessions, investment opportunities, and 
trade monopolies in Latin-American countries. 

As long as territorial extension and the establishment of 
protectorates were not the objectives of European diplo- 
macy, the United States did not protest against the abuse 
of force in the dealings of Europe with the Latin-American 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 355 

republics. Our financiers and business men were not yet 
attracted by the opportunities of Latin-American exploita- 
tion. As late as 1902 the United States recognized the 
validity of the position taken by Palmerston in 1848, that 
a state always has the right, if convinced that justice is 
denied, to support the pecuniary claims of its citizens by 
force against a country whose courts they are unwilling 
to trust. This principle had been contested at the time by 
the Argentine jurist Calvo, who contended that a state had 
no right to take up, even as a matter of diplomatic action, 
the pecuniary claims of its citizens or subjects against 
another state. 

At the time of the joint intervention of Great Britain, 
Italy, and Germany in Venezuela in 1902, our State Depart- 
ment admitted that these three powers had the right to 
intervene with force, provided they did not violate the 
Monroe Doctrine by acquiring territory or by oppressing 
or instigating the overthrow of the Venezuelan govern- 
ment. The Argentine minister of foreign affairs, Drago, 
protested, with unanimous South American public opinion 
behind him, claiming that while international law did not, 
as Calvo had said, forbid the making of diplomatic repre- 
sentations, it did deny the use of military or naval force 
for the collection of pecuniary claims. Between 1902 and 
1907, when the second Hague conference met, the United 
States changed her ground, and the American delegates 
advocated the principle that international debts should be 
ascertained and collected by some process of law and not 
by arbitrary force. Mr. Root, in his instructions to the 
delegates, explained this stand by stating that such use of 
force was 'inconsistent with respect for the independent 
sovereignty of other nations," and seemed to the United 
States to be a practice '' injurious in its general effect upon 
the relations of nations and upon the welfare of weak and 
disordered states, whose development ought to be encour- 
aged in the interests of civilization." 



356 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

This attitude, maintained from 1907 to 1916, gratified the 
Latin- American republics and did much to make them be- 
heve that the United States intended to resist the current 
of world politics, which tended to make force the arbiter 
in differences between great powers and small states. 
Faith in American sincerity, however, was shaken by our 
dealings with Santo Domingo and Haiti during the second 
Wilson administration and by the attitude of Mr. Wilson 
towards the principle of equality of states at the Paris con- 
ference. There was difference of opinion in South America 
over the Wilson policy towards Mexico, and Washington 
had not rejected, but had rather welcomed, the mediation 
of the largest three South American states in the earlier 
stages of the breach resulting from the refusal to recognize 
Huerta and from the occupation of Vera Cruz. 

During the campaign of 1920 Mr. Harding and several 
of the Republican senators attacked the outgoing adminis- 
tration for its high-handed and brutal policy in Haiti and 
Santo Domingo. It was alleged in the Senate by the Repub- 
licans that our marine forces had been guilty of atrocities, 
and that the arbitrary dissolution of the Haitian parlia- 
ment and censorship of news, involving the imprisonment 
or expulsion of journalists, had been injurious to friendly 
relations between the United States and all the Latin- 
American republics. A reversal of the Wilson policy of 
dominating these two peoples by armed forces in the in- 
terests of American financiers was promised. But Secre- 
tary Hughes demanded a ratification of treaties putting 
Haiti and Santo Domingo under American protection as a 
prerequisite to the withdrawal of the forces of occupation. 
And a senatorial investigating committee under Senator 
McCormick returned from the island with a non-committal 
report. 

As in the Philippines, so in the West Indies : it is easier 
to take than to give up. But the United States can not 
pursue a policy of aggression against small states and ex- 



UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA (1893-1917) 357 

pect to be a candidate for the ''moral leadership of the 
world." The European powers and Japan will understand 
us the better for speaking their language in international 
relations ; but we shall lose our prestige in South America 
and the respect and confidence of the Latin-American re- 
publics. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE UNITED STATES IN THE COALITION AGAINST THE 
CENTEAL EMPIEES (1917-1918) 

THE great majority of Americans regarded the Euro- 
pean war as an interesting and dramatic spectacle in 
which their own country was not concerned. Hence they 
found no difficulty in following the president's advice that 
Americans remain neutral in thought as well as in action. 
Despite the tireless propaganda carried on by both groups 
of belligerents to win American support, public opinion in 
general accepted without question the declaration of Presi- 
dent Wilson that he did not know the causes of the war and 
wished that some one would tell him. Those elements that 
took sides violently when war was first declared, and that 
worked hard for thirty months to advance the cause of 
one or the other of the belligerent groups, met with little 
success. 

But in time the Germans, who seemed to glory in violat- 
ing the ordinary ethics of warfare on land and sea, aroused 
American indignation by the sinking of the Lusitania and 
other ships ; and this bitterness was enhanced by the revela- 
tions of German plots against American industries, planned 
and carried out on American soil. In addition to their 
monumental tactlessness, the Germans suffered, too, from 
three handicaps that gradually turned American public 
opinion against them. (1) Unlike Great Britain, Germany 
had not a single place on the American continent where she 
exercised political sovereignty, and therefore her propa- 
ganda and her espionage service w^as driven to violation 
of the neutrality of the United States and other nations. 
(2) Not controlling any cables or being able to use in com- 

358 



UNITED STATES AGAINST CENTRAL EMPIRES 359 

munication with the New World means that were not under 
the surveillance of her enemies, Germany had to resort to 
discreditable practices to keep in touch with her agents. 
(3) Her inability either to contest the supremacy of the 
sea with the British or to import under neutral flags and 
through neutral countries made it impossible to purchase 
war supplies from the United States, and thus American 
finance and industry became more and more interested in 
the success of the Entente. Interests engender sympathies, 
and customers are backed against non-customers. 

After two years of war, however, during which there was 
ample opportunity for the United States to become fully 
acquainted with the German methods of waging war on 
land and sea, and after we had suffered much at the hands 
of Germany, the sentiment for maintaining neutrality was 
still so strong that neither candidate at the presidential 
election in the autumn of 1916 dared risk giving the im- 
pression that his program for the conduct of our foreign 
relations implied a departure from neutrality. President 
Wilson and Mr. Hughes were equally afraid to advocate 
preparedness, thinking that defeat at the polls was certain 
for any man whom the American people suspected of want- 
ing to lead them into the war. 

In view of these facts, which tragically stand in the 
way of sentimentalists, it is difficult to accept at their face 
value the principal reasons set forth by President Wilson 
on April 2, 1917, and in his subsequent speeches, for the 
entry of the United States into the World War. The vin- 
dication of principles of peace and justice against selfish 
autocratic power, the fight for democracy, rights of small 
nations, and universal domination of right by consent of 
free peoples were splendid ideals to set before a nation 
entering upon a costly struggle, and none questions the pro- 
priety and wisdom of voicing them. But the Entente 
Powers had begun the war with the proclamation of those 
very principles almost three years earlier. Either these 



360 AN INTRODUCTION TO "WORLD POLITICS 

principles were not deemed by the American people suf- 
ficiently important to fight for, or the nation and its leaders 
had as a whole been unaware that they were the issues at 
stake until the beginning of 1917. We can not get away 
from this dilemma. It is important to admit it, and to state 
the bald fact of the case, that our intervention in the World 
War followed the great law of history, which is that peoples 
fight when they feel themselves menaced in their security 
and prosperity, and not until then. 

It took time for American public opinion to realize that 
privileges can not be enjoyed without assuming responsi- 
bilities. Had Great Britain, France, and Italy not been 
capacity purchasers of American commodities, whose or- 
ders were making the United States experience an unex- 
ampled prosperity boom, the German submarine blockade 
might not have been considered a casus helli} On the other 
hand, the blockade of Germany and the neutral states of 
northern Europe, which had also been in effect for nearly 
three years, did not unduly excite American public opinion. 
For it was understood that the blockaders were always 
willing to buy at our prices whatever goods we had to sell 
and were therefore not injuring American trade by the 
enforcement of the arbitrary British orders in council. 

During the first year of the war the United States 
addressed numerous and sharp protests to Great Britain 
against interference with American trade and mails. Lon- 
don answered politely, but intimated that nothing Wash- 
ington might say would result in a change in the methods 
decided upon to bring Germany to her knees. The British 
did not attempt to defend their actions at sea by denying 
the soundness of our interpretation of existing maritime 
law, but shifted the argument to moral grounds. Germany 
was a criminal, and Great Britain was defending the whole 

* The greatest loss of American lives and the most outrageous example of 
ruthlessncss occurred two years before the declaration of war, when near!}- a 
thousand non-combatants, including many women and children, went down" 
on the Lusitania. 



UNITED STATES AGAINST CENTRAL EMPIRES 361 

world, including the United States, against her attempt to 
stifle human liberty and progress. "Washington was not 
convinced that the British argumenta ad hominem were 
satisfactory answers to reasonable complaints, but the 
notes of the American State Department, although they 
continued to protest against violations of international law, 
became academic and temporizing as the Entente powers 
increased their orders for American goods and floated loans 
at attractive interest rates through American bankers. 
Our notes to Germany became more insistent and less com- 
promising in proportion as our trade with the Entente 
powers grew in importance. There was nothing deliberate 
or intentional in this. The influences of self-interest, how- 
ever, are none the less real because they are unconscious. 
American prosperity gradually seemed to become depen- 
dent upon the defeat of Germany, and at the same time 
German successes began to worry Entente sympathizers in 
the United States, who had always been more optimistic 
than the military situation justified. 

"Without exaggerating or attempting to build up a thesis 
through the exclusion of other factors, — for the motives 
inspiring individual, let alone collective, action are always 
complex and difficult to evaluate, — we are justified in at- 
taching importance to the parallel between the economic 
and political trends in our relations with European states 
from August, 1914, to February, 1917. It was inevitable 
that we should finally engage in war with the country whose 
activities threatened to impair our prosperity. This hap- 
pened in 1812. It happened again in 1917. 

In the interim Europe fought several wars of far-reach- 
ing significance, and the European nations were in constant 
competition with one another for exclusive political and 
economic spheres throughout the world. But during thi& 
period the United States had no part in European quar- 
rels. As long as the United States was a self-sufficient 
country she was engrossed in her own internal develop- 



362 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ment. She had unlimited opportunities for expansion in 
her own continent, without coming into conflict with any 
European power. As she constituted within her own bor- 
ders the greatest free-trade area in the world and did not 
have to protect herself by fleets, armies, and alliances, she 
could be indifferent to events that happened elsewhere. 

As we have seen, the United States changed rapidly from 
1893 to the outbreak of the European war, but the bulk of 
the people were as yet unaware of our interdependence 
with other nations, especially with those of Europe. At 
the beginning of 1917 both our security and our prosperity 
seemed menaced by the action of Germany, and our pride 
and honor were brought into question. On January 22 
President Wilson spoke before the Senate of the advis- 
ability of ** peace without victory" as the means of termi- 
nating the European war. Nine days later Germany de- 
clared an unrestricted submarine campaign against neutral 
shipping. Immediately President Wilson became the 
leader of a militant people, and not many months later, 
although the issues of the war had remained the same for 
the European combatants, the American president declared 
that the questions at stake could be settled only by the ap- 
plication of force to the uttermost until complete victory 
was obtained. 

On April 14, 1916, the United States had demanded the 
punishment of the submarine commander responsible for 
the attacks on the Sussex and other steamers attacked with- 
out warning, on which American travelers had been injured 
or killed; a full indemnity; and guaranties for the future. 
Germany was warned that delay in answering would mean 
the breaking off of diplomatic relations. On May 4 Ger- 
many replied that she had exercised great restraint in the 
use of submarines and could not abandon this weapon of 
self-defense against Great Britain, but she promised to 
give warning before sinking vessels and to make every 
effort to save life, and in return requested the United 



UNITED STATES AGAINST CENTRAL EMPIRES 363 

States to insist that Great Britain cease to interfere with 
sea-borne trade. On May 8 the United States acknowl- 
edged the receipt of Germany's answer, with the pledge 
given, and pointed out that the United States was "unable 
to discuss the suggestion that the safety of American citi- 
zens should be made dependent on the conduct of other 
governments." This is how matters stood when, on Janu- 
ary 31, 1917, Germany withdrew the pledge and notified the 
world that she intended to inaugurate an unrestricted sub- 
marine blockade of her enemies' coasts. President Wilson 
gave Count Bernstorff, German ambassador at Washing- 
ton, his passports on February 3. After waiting two 
months for Germany to cancel her submarine blockade or- 
ders, the United States declared war on April 6.^ 

From the first day the participation of the United States 
was whole-hearted. President Wilson explained that the 
war was not against the German people but against their 
government, and that its purpose was to free the Germans 
as well as other peoples from the oppression of autocratic 
and irresponsible government, which disturbed the world's 
peace and conducted war in defiance of the laws of hu- 
manity. The American ideals were elaborated in many 
speeches, and served the double purpose of giving the 
Americans a sacred cause to fight for and of breaking down 
the morale of the Germans, who were not averse to the pro- 
gram of peace outlined in Mr. Wilson's '^fourteen points." 

The Entente powers realized that the intervention of 
the United States, aside from its world-wide moral effect, 
would bring vital economic and financial aid. The United 
States had already been an indispensable provider of food- 
stuffs and chemicals, and had helped appreciably in fur- 
nishing manufactured products and raw materials for ar- 

*Oii December 7, 1917, war was declared on Austria-Hungary. Turkey 
took the initiative in severing diplomatic relations with the United States two 
weeks before we joined the enemies of Germany. But President Wilson could 
never be induced to declare war on Turkey or even to break off diplomatic 
relations with Bulgaria. 



364 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

mament and transportation. But all the Allied powers were 
reaching the end of their credit in America, and they had 
been bidding against one another for American goods. The 
abandonment of neutrality meant government credits in 
the United States, the speeding up of production, and the 
control of prices and distribution. The German shipping 
that had been tied up in American ports since 1914 became 
an invaluable addition to the tonnage at the disposition of 
the Entente powers for the transportation of their Ameri- 
can purchases. 

It was soon demonstrated that the United States did not 
intend to limit her participation to economic or naval aid. 
Within three weeks of the declaration of war Congress 
voted conscription, and on June 25 the first fighting troops 
landed at St. Nazaire. A year later a million American 
soldiers were in France, and this fact, given out with a 
table of figures for each month, convinced the German peo- 
ple that their government had deceived them concerning 
the efficacy of submarine warfare and that they would soon 
be overwhelmed by sheer force of arms. 

Aside from the influence of American intervention upon 
the fortunes of the war, which we can not attempt to esti- 
mate here, Germany's folly in forcing into the conflict on 
the side of her enemies the one great power that had re- 
mained aloof radically changed the distribution and com- 
parative strength of the pieces on the chessboard of world 
politics. From a disinterested observer and occasional 
adviser, the United States was transformed into a partner 
in the enterprise of universal political reconstruction, finan- 
cial rehabiUtation, and economic readjustment. 

The World War made the United States a great creditor 
nation, interested in the fiscal policies of European nations. 
When we transferred to European nations the proceeds of 
our liberty loans, several million American bondholders 
automatically became concerned in what happened to 
Europe ; for both principal and interest of their investment 



UNITED STATES AGAINST CENTRAL EMPIRES 365 

"vere involved. The war caused us to develop our indus- 
trial and agricultural productivity far beyond the needs 
of home consumption, and to invest billions in a merchant 
marine. Therefore we were to be left at the end of the 
war with the habit formed of selling heavily abroad, a thing 
we had never done before, and with a considrable merchant 
marine, in support of which we should have to enter into 
competition with European powers, especially Great 
Britain and Japan, for the carrying trade of the world. 

Because our participation led many of the Latin-Ameri- 
can repubhcs and China and Siam to enter the coalition 
against the central powers, the United States assumed a 
moral responsibility to pursue to attainment after the war 
the objects for which we had entered it. The day after 
President Wilson severed diplomatic relations he sent a 
note to all neutral states, even the smallest, inviting them 
to follow the example of the United States, and when we 
entered the war these countries were encouraged to declare 
war on Germany. In complying with the request of Presi- 
dent Wilson to break with Germany, several states, notably 
China, officially informed our State Department that the 
United States was being taken at her word. Our diplo- 
matic representatives at Peking, Bangkok, and Kio de 
Janeiro, when asked to notify Washington that China, 
Siam, and Brazil had declared war on Germany, were told 
that this action was inspired by the hope of seeing prevail 
in international relations the principles for which (''and 
for no others") President Wilson affirmed that Americans 
were ready to sacrifice their treasure and lay down their 
lives. 

We did not approve the objects and methods of world 
politics as practised by the other powers, and, through our 
president, we said so. The desire to cooperate in estab- 
lishing a new world order rather than merely to punish 
Germany was explicitly stated at the time of our interven- 
tion. Denunciation of the evil effect of world politics upon 



366 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

international relations was the leit-motiv of the speeches of 
Mr. Wilson before, during, and after our participation in 
the war. Weak nations throughout the world believed in 
the sincerity of the United States, and our word was con- 
sidered, especially in China, as good as our bond. Our 
** moral leadership of the world," therefore, is likely to 
depend on the measure of success we attain in giving that 
leadership the character we promised to give it. . 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE DISINTEGEATION OF THE EOMANOFF, HAPSBUEG, AND 
OTTOMAN EMPIRES THROUGH SELF-DETER- 
MINATION PROPAGANDA (1917-1918) 

THE first reaction to the Russian Revolution is shown 
by the instructions sent to the ambassadors at Petro- 
grad. The new government was to be recognized, but its 
leaders must be given to understand that the other Entente 
powers expected an unabated military effort and loyalty 
to diplomatic understandings. As long as the revolution- 
ary leaders promised to keep up the war and not to change 
Russian foreign policy, the Paris and London press dwelt 
upon the advantages of the revolution to the Allied cause. 
What had been denied before was now admitted — that 
czarist Russia had been on the verge of making peace with 
Germany. The revolution was taken, therefore, as a sign 
of the anti-German sentiment of the Russian people. The 
embarrassing alliance between Occidental democracies and 
an Oriental autocracy in a war for freedom no longer made 
the war aims of the Entente seem inconsistent with the 
professions of British and French statesmen. The central 
empires had been greatly helped up to this time by the 
necessary opposition of the Entente to the aspirations of 
Poland and Finland and by the pledge that Constantinople 
should be awarded to Russia. 

But no sooner had the new Russian government agreed 
to acknowledge the rights of Poles and Finns than a re- 
markable Ukrainian demonstration occurred in the streets 
of Petrograd, and an autonomous government was set up 
at Kieff. Other separatist movements started in various 
parts of the old empire. The Don and Kuban Cossacks 

367 



368 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and the peoples of the Caucasus announced that the revo- 
lution meant freedom for them as well as for the Poles and 
the Finns. When espousing the doctrine of self-determina- 
tion as a means of destroying the Austro-Hungarian and 
Ottoman empires and taking slices off the German Empire, 
Entente statesmen had discounted its disastrous effect in 
the Russian Empire, which had been created and was held 
together only by a strong military despotism. 

At the very beginning of the war, Entente propagandists 
raised the question of subject nationalities, but determined 
to ignore the aspirations to independence of all other peo- 
ples save those under the yoke of enemy countries. There 
was wisdom in this. Self-determination was a war weapon 
and not a profession of faith in an ideal. When every 
nerve was being strained to beat Germany to her knees, it 
would have been folly to discuss matters tending to under- 
mine the solidarity of the Entente coalition. But as the 
war dragged on the principles proclaimed by Premiers 
Asquith and Viviani proved pervasive. Much to the alarm 
of Entente statesmen, it was discovered that these princi- 
ples could not be limited. They were advocated by Presi- 
dent Wilson. They aroused the hopes of races subject to 
the Entente powers. The Dublin uprising in Ireland and 
the unrest in India were warnings of the boomerang effect 
of using the weapon of self-determination. 

The effort to blow hot or blow cold upon nationalist aspi- 
rations and irredentist claims, distinguishing among sub- 
ject peoples on the sole basis of expediency, proved to be 
an impossible task when the war entered its fourth year. 
The Romanoff, Hapsburg, and Ottoman empires were 
neighboring states, and the consideration that Russia was 
a friendly country, while Austria-Hungary and Turkey 
were enemy countries, did not alter the essential similarity 
of their political organization. They were dynastic states, 
created by combining heterogeneous peoples under one 
rule, principally through conquest. The symbol of unity 



DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 369 

was not a common national consciousness, but the ruling 
dynasty, supported by a dominant racial element that had 
not assimilated or fused with the subject elements. Artifi- 
cial frontiers separated peoples who spoke the same lan- 
guage, professed the same religion, and had at one time 
enjoyed a common national existence. 

The alien elements in east Prussia and Silesia were 
Lithuanians and Poles, not Russians. The Finns were no 
more a separate people than the Esthonians, Latvians, and 
Lithuanians, who inhabited the Russian Baltic provinces. 
Russia had oppressed the Poles, materially far more than 
Germany and morally as much as Germany, and the Poles 
of Austria had been treated both materially and morally 
infinitely better than the Poles of Russia. The Ukrainians 
of Austria could not be worked upon by Entente propa- 
ganda without stirring up the other nine tenths of the 
Ukrainian nation, who inhabited southwestern Russia. 
Rumanian irredentism could not be limited to crippling 
Hungary by detaching Transylvania; for the rich Russian 
province of Bessarabia was also Rumanian. There were 
more Armenians under Russian than under Turkish rule. 
If the liberation of non-Turkish elements of the Ottoman 
Empire was the war aim of the Entente powers, the Rus- 
sian claim to Constantinople was not so good as that of 
Greece, and Greece had priority over Italy in regard to the 
^gean islands and the Smyrna region of Asia Minor. 
Syrians and Arabs aspired to freedom and not to a change 
of masters. "When the British decided to recognize the 
independence of the Hedjaz in order to make possible the 
conquest of Mesopotamia and Palestine, they discovered 
that political expediency was not a sufficient excuse for 
acknowledging the right of Arabic-speaking Moslems on 
the east side of the Red Sea to be independent and denying 
that right to a people of the same language and religion, 
but of a much higher civilization, on the other side of the 
Red Sea. The doctrine of self-determination, used by the 



370 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

British in their efforts to arouse alien elements against the 
Turks, reacted against themselves in Egypt. 

From the point of view of world politics, the champion- 
ship of the rights of small nations was a serious blunder. 
It was largely responsible for the collapse of Russia, and 
it would have caused the Entente powers to lose the war 
had not the United States intervened. Only so far as win- 
ning the war was concerned did the United States make up 
for the defection of Russia. The Americans could not be 
counted upon to compensate Great Britain in Asia and 
France in Europe for the disappearance of czarist Russia. 
Instead of an accomplice in the exploitation of Asiatic peo- 
ples, Russia suddenly became anti-imperialist and a prop- 
agandist for self-determination, to the confusion of the 
British in India, Afghanistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia.^ 
From a cooperating factor in maintaining the balance of 
power against Germany in Europe, she was changed to an 
enemy of "capitalist diplomacy," and henceforth worked 
against the French policy, born of necessity, of holding 
Germany in check by an alliance with Germany's powerful 
neighbor on the east. 

The attitude of Great Britain, France, and Italy towards 
the disintegration of the Hapsburg empire during the war 
was not harmonious, either as to means or ends, and has 
given rise to much speculation. No accurate account of the 
divergent policies that were discussed or followed can be 
given until the diplomatic correspondence is published. 
We know, however, from the unsuccessful efforts to in- 
duce Austria-Hungary to sign a separate peace, from the 
terms of the armistice of November 3, and from the discus- 
sions preceding the final drafting of the treaty of St. Ger- 
main in the summer of 1919, that the three powers whose 
common victory had destroyed the Dual Monarchy and 
driven into exile the Hapsburg dynasty had differing views 
on the future status of the Danubian and Adriatic regions. 

» See pp. 439-441, 447, 453-454, 468, 471-472, 501-504, 507-509. 



DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 371 

British, French, and Italian statesmen were agreed upon 
the wisdom of encouraging the subject peoples of the Haps- 
burg empire to revolt against their Austrian and Hun- 
garian masters; for this seemed the surest method of de- 
priving Germany both of a reservoir of troops and of her 
only means of communication with Bulgaria and Turkey. 
But all shared the misgiving of Mr. Lloyd George about 
''Balkanizing Europe." Although the immediate advan- 
tage of disrupting the Hapsburg empire was indisputable 
from a military point of view, the Entente statesmen did 
not forget that the emancipation of the subject peoples had 
to be envisaged from the standpoint of post-bellum recon- 
struction. Up to the time of the defection of Russia, they 
felt their way cautiously. If Eussia was to receive the 
German Lithuanians of the Memel region, the German and 
Austrian Poles, and the Austrian and Hungarian Ukrain- 
ians, and was to be the big sister of a greatly enlarged 
Serbia with an Adriatic littoral, in addition to Constanti- 
nople and the Straits already promised her, the principal 
result of the defeat of Germany would be the preponder- 
ance of Eussia in Europe and her appearance as a naval 
power in the Mediterranean. After the new Russian gov- 
ernment announced its intention to free subject races and 
to renounce the rewards the old Russia had insisted upon 
receiving as her share of the spoils, this source of embar- 
rassment and danger was removed. 

It became possible for the Entente statesmen to sponsor 
the resurrection of Poland. The obstacle to recognizing 
the right to independence of the Czecho-Slovaks was re- 
moved.^ The eastern part of Hungary had already been 
promised to Rumania and most of the Adriatic littoral of 
Austria to Italy. British and French statesmen had not 
up to this time believed that these pledges would have to 

* The British and French governments could give no encouragement to the 
Czecho-Slovak emissaries in London and Paris for fear of offending Eussia. 
The Eussian government had logically pointed out that any promises made to 
the Czecho-Slovaks would react to the disadvantage of Eussia in Poland. 



372 AN INTEODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

be met.^ They had felt that the situation at the end of the 
war might demand a revision of the promises in the trea- 
ties, and that it would be possible to compromise and bar- 
gain in such a way as to revamp the Hapsburg dominions 
into a confederation that would satisfy the Slavs because 
the Austrians and Hungarians were not to continue to play 
the role of masters. 

When the Hapsburg dominions could no longer be held 
together, problems arose that seemed impossible of settle- 
ment except by new wars among the emancipated peoples. 
As in the Balkans, the liberated states had conflicting 
claims and could invoke historical, strategic, ethnographic^ 
and economic grounds for possessing the same territories. 
The Poles dreamed of recreating their medieval empire at 
the expense of Prussians, Lithuanians, Russians, Ukrain- 
ians, Rumanians, and Czecho-Slovaks. The Teschen dis- 
trict of upper Silesia was claimed by Poles and Czecho- 
slovaks, eastern Galicia by Poles and Ukrainians, and the 
banat of Temesvar by Rumanians and Serbians. 

The two most important problems in the application of 
the principle of self-determination to the Hapsburg domin- 
ions were those affecting the future of Austria and the sat- 
isfaction of Italian aspirations. Both had been recognized, 
since the beginning of the World War, as fuU of danger for 
the future relations among the great powers, because their 
solution involved changes in the European balance of 
power. 

Even if Italian and Czecho-Slovak claims were fully al- 
lowed in the settlement following the war, there would still 
be between seven and eight million Austrian-Germans in 
territory contiguous to Germany. If the principle of self- 

^ They repeatedly said as much to M. Vesnitch, Serbian minister at Paris. 
Rumanian statesmen have told me that they felt they were being ' ' double- 
crossed" in the negotiations for the fulfilment of promises made to them ii^ 
1916. Proof of the fact that agreements signed under the stress of necessity 
are not taken too seriously by governments is to be found in a comparison 
of the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Anglo-Hedjaz treaty. See pp. 437- 
440. 



DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 373 

determination were applied to the German element in the 
Hapsburg empire, the richest prize of the war would fall to 
Germany. The vanquished power would be more than 
compensated for her losses to France, Belgium, Denmark, 
and Poland by the acquisition of these millions and a fer- 
tile territory extending along the Danube, with the third 
city of Europe as its capital. The French were determined 
that no such contingency should ever arise, and when it was 
realized that the Hapsburg dominions could not be held 
together, French diplomacy asserted that the permanent 
political separation of Austria and Germany was not a 
matter to be discussed after the war. Despite the conse- 
quences to the Austrians, their exclusion from Germany 
was to be a basic and unalterable fact in the reconstruction 
of Europe. Far-seeing Frenchmen, however, beUeved that 
it might prove impossible, whatever were the treaty stipu- 
lations, to prevent the union of Austria with Germany. 
Consequently there was a tendency in France during the 
war to attempt to save Austria-Hungary, and proposals 
for a separate peace were both made and entertained with 
that object in view. 

Great Britain, on the other hand, was not alarmed over 
the possibihty of the incorporation of the German-speaking 
portions of Austria with Germany. This contingency did 
not affect her security as it affected the security of France ; 
it might even prove advantageous to her commerce. Italy 
felt that she had less to fear from the Germans than from 
the Russians, and the thought of the union of Austria with 
Germany was not disturbing. As a neighbor Italy could 
not help but benefit by the prosperity of Austria shorn 
of military power, and if that prosperity were dependent 
upon union with Germany it would benefit Italy to have 
the union effected. 

The difference of policy during the war between France 
and Italy in regard to the Hapsburg dominions is a strik- 
ing illustration of how allied peoples, fighting a common 



374 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

enemy, have in mind and advance antagonistic aims because 
their situation and their interests are different. France's 
great enemy was the HohenzoUern empire; Italy's great 
enemy was the Hapsburg empire. To prevent Germany 
from inheriting any portion of it, France was ready to pre- 
serve the Hapsburg empire. Because her own prosperity 
was in a measure dependent upon the prosperity of central 
Europe, Italy was ready to preserve the HohenzoUern em- 
pire. Fearing Germany, France wanted to detach from 
Germany all the territory she could, thus lessening her 
man power and sources of wealth. In order to dispose of 
the nightmare of a strong political organism, which had 
always impeded her growth and had preyed upon her, Italy 
believed that the annexation of German-speaking Austria 
(after she had taken her part) to Germany might be the 
best way of forestalling for all time any scheme to revive 
the Hapsburg empire. The French, intent upon destroying 
Germany, regarded Austrians and Hungarians with toler- 
ance and, having nothing to fear from Austria-Hungary, 
did not see why the territories of the Dual Monarchy should 
not be reorganized politically and remain a unit. The Ital- 
ians, intent upon destroying Austria-Hungary, deplored 
the fact that they had to fight Germany also, and, having 
nothing to fear from Germany, were willing to see the Ger- 
mans rehabilitated and even strengthened.^ 

When the moment for drawing up .armistice terms ar- 
rived, Italy held to the letter of her secret treaty of 1915. 
She insisted upon occupying the Austrian Tyrol up to the 
Brenner Pass, the ports and hinterland of the head of the 
Adriatic, and ports and islands of Dalmatia. Her object 
was not to take military precautions to insure the unques- 
tioned acceptance of the defeat by the vanquished enemy, 
but to stamp out Serbian nationalism in the regions she 
purposed annexing to Italy. By occupying Fiume the Ital- 
ians went beyond the terms of the 1915 treaty. These 

>See pp. 450-451. 



• DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 375 

moves had long been feared by the Serbians, and they 
proved that the instinct of the Jugo-Slavs of Austria and 
Hungary to support the Hapsburg empire against Italy 
had been justified. The Italians still farther limited the 
application of the principle of self-determination. Entente 
statesmen had declared that only the peoples subject to 
enemies of the Entente were to enjoy this right. With the 
consent of the British and French, the Italians made a 
reservation even to this narrow limitation of the doctrine : 
Self-determination was to be exercised by peoples subject 
to enemy domination only in the case of territories not 
coveted and claimed by any of the great powers. Where 
one of the liberators was concerned, there was to be simply 
a change of masters. 

Hard pressed by Germany, and not sure of victory, the 
Entente powers in the spring of 1918 began to encourage 
officially the aspirations of the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Jugo- 
Slavs, and Rumanians. They entered into relations with 
national committees that had long been formed and had 
sent their representatives to London, Paris, Rome, and 
Washington. Special treatment was accorded Austro- 
Hungarian prisoners of war of Slavic blood, and when they 
could be induced to do so, they were formed into regiments 
to fight against former comrades-in-arms. In August and 
September the Czecho-Slovaks were recognized as allies 
and belligerents, and on October 17, 1918, the Czech Re- 
public was proclaimed at Prague. The Polish nationalist 
army was recognized by the allied and associated powers 
in October, and when the Germans quit Poland the Warsaw 
government informed Austria, on November 8, 1918, that 
Galicia had been incorporated in Poland. Transylvanians 
proclaimed their union with Rumania and Jugo-Slavs their 
union with Serbia during the last days of the Dual Mon- 
archy. But the Jugo-Slavs had never received satisfaction 
from the Entente powers as to the status and territorial 
limits of their nation. After the armistice they discovered, 



376 AN INTEODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

what they had long suspected, that Great Britain and 
France were bound by explicit engagements to sacrifice 
most of the Slovenes and a part of the Croats and Dal- 
matians to Italy. 

With the exception of the Czecho-Slovaks, there is doubt 
as to the contribution of the subject peoples of Austria and 
Hungary to the hastening of the victory of the Entente 
powers over the central empires. But once the military 
power of the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs was manifestly 
broken, the effects of the self-determination propaganda 
were immediately evident. The disintegration of the Dual 
Monarchy took place automatically and almost without 
bloodshed. 

In 1914, when they realized that Turkey was considering 
joining the central empires, the Entente ambassadors at 
Constantinople offered to maintain the integrity of the 
Ottoman Empire in exchange for Ottoman neutrality. 
They promised not to countenance or recognize any na- 
tional movement within the dominions of the sultan. A 
fortnight later, when this bribe seemed to have no effect, 
they tried intimidation, and warned the Turks that if they 
joined Germany they would lose the territories where there 
were non-Turkish elements. These negotiations prove that 
the self-determination propaganda of the Entente powers, 
as applied to the Near East, was inspired by the same pol- 
icy of expediency as their support of small nations else- 
where. 

"When Turkey joined the central empires, the Entente 
powers were free to use the weapon of self-determination 
as a war measure to destroy the integrity of the Ottoman 
Empire, although two members of the Entente had fought 
the third to maintain it in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. There was no desire, however, to carry out the threat 
and to preach in the Near East the doctrine in defense of 
which they professed to be fighting in Europe. From the 
beginning of the war the diplomacy of the Entente powers 



DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 377 

in the Ottoman Empire followed its traditional course. If 
Turkey had to go by the board there would be no emanci^ 
pation of subject races, but a division of the Ottoman Em- 
pire into spheres of influence. The encouragement of as- 
pirations to independence on the part of Mohammedan 
peoples was contrary to the general interests of Great Brit- 
ain and France in Asia and Africa. Because of the diffi- 
culties of division, and because of the sentiments of soli- 
darity with the Turks of their own Moslem subjects, the 
British and the French would have preferred to see the 
Ottoman Empire kept intact, despite the aid and comfort 
Turkey was giving to their enemies. But Russia and Italy 
had to be rewarded, and if this were done the other two. 
powers must have their compensations. Present British 
and French possessions and economic interests had to be 
protected and the balance of power preserved in the Near 
East. 

Greece, part of the time with the powerful voice of 
Venizelos, spoke for the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, 
who were persecuted, exiled, and massacred during the war 
in a manner scarcely less thorough than that applied to the 
Armenians. The massacre and deportation of the Ar- 
menians was unparalleled. The Syrians, too, were preyed 
upon. But the Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire 
received no encouragement or protection from the Entente 
powers. Russian, Italian, and French ambitions could not 
be realized without the sacrifice of the Greeks and the Ar- 
menians. They were, therefore, sacrificed. As these pow- 
ers were against Greek and Armenian nationalism, and as 
Great Britain had no interests in the parts of Turkey in- 
habited by Christian peoples, the armistice with Turkey, 
after the complete victory, made no provision for their 
protection or liberation. A fitting epitaph for the tomb of 
more than a million Christians of the Ottoman Empire, who 
were fired with hope because of the proclamations of the 
ideals of the Entente, and whose devotion to the enemies 



378 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

of Germany was not reciprocated, would be, ''They lost 
their lives because they were loyal to those who could have 
saved them." 

Ideals and sentiments of humanity have no place in 
world politics. While the Greeks and Armenians were suf- 
fering, the Entente powers carried on protracted negotia- 
tions over the future of the Ottoman dominions. The 
Anglo-French agreements of 1915 and 1916 defined even- 
tual rights of Russia and Italy. In return for Constanti- 
nople, the ^gean islands, the Smyrna and Adalia regions, 
and southern Asia Minor as far east as Konia, Russia, and 
Italy agreed to leave eastern Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, 
and Mesopotamia to the French and the British. In 1916 
two officials, whose names the arrangement bears, settled 
conflicting French and British claims by a compromise 
known as the Sykes-Picot agreement. Southeastern Asia 
Minor, Cilicia, and Syria went to France; and Palestine, 
the Sinai peninsula, and Mesopotamia, to Great Britain. 
The dividing lines were settled after long and bitter dis- 
cussions in which oil and copper, and not the necessities or 
wishes of the peoples concerned, were the guiding consid- 
erations. 

The intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the central 
empires, the failure of the Dardanelles expedition, the dis- 
aster that befell the British army in Mesopotamia, and the 
attempt of the Turks to invade Egypt by crossing the Suez 
Canal opened the eyes of the Entente powers to the dangers 
of the Turkish situation. Turkey showed no signs of suc- 
cumbing and made no move to sue for a separate peace. 
The disaster to Russian arms in Europe and the stalemate 
on the French front contributed to diminish the prestige of 
the Entente in the Near East. 

The situation was particularly serious for Great Britain, 
who was compelled to put forth every effort and use every 
means to reestablish her military reputation. Unless thej* 
showed that they could drive the Turks out of Bagdad and 



DISINTEGRATION OF EMPIRES (1917-1918) 379 

Jerusalem, the British would have to face troubles in 
Egypt and India and the loss of all influence in Arabia 
(where the holding of Aden was important), in Persia, 
and in Afghanistan. British statesmen and military lead- 
ers are not in the habit of fooling themselves. They saw 
that in Mesopotamia and Arabia they would have to use 
the natives to fight the Turks, and that no military opera- 
tion on a large scale, bringing decisive results, would be 
possible without the cooperation of the Arabs. When this 
fact was recognized, prodigal promises of independence 
were made to all the important sheiks of Mesopotamia, 
and the shereef of Mecca was induced to revolt against the 
sultan. In return the independence of the Hedjaz was 
promulgated, with the shereef as King Hussein. SeK-de- 
termination for the Arabs was preached, and this propa- 
ganda, the boldest and most picturesque during the World 
War, resulted in the conquest of Mesopotamia and Pales- 
tine by the British. 

The British intended to use the national movement 
among the Arabs only as a means, and not to allow it to 
grow to irresistible proportions. To keep the Suez Canal 
under their protection, and to set up a barrier between the 
Arabs of Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Syria, and the Arabs 
of Egypt, the London government conceived the idea of 
utilizing the Zionist movement. On November 2, 1917, 
Foreign Secretary Balfour issued a statement declaring 
that the British government was in sympathy with Zionism 
and would aid the Zionists to set up a national home for all 
the Jews in Palestine. A few months earlier, to propitiate 
the Arabs of the Hedjaz, the British had promised them 
Damascus, which had been assigned to Prance in the Anglo- 
French agreement of the previous year. 

The Hedjaz movement was the only one that was recog- 
nized by the Entente powers. The belligerency of the 
Hedjaz was proclaimed, and its representatives attended 
the peace conference as delegates of a sovereign state. The 



380 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

other subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire were denied a 
hearing at Paris, as their fate had already been settled by 
the series of agreements among the victors. The Ottoman 
Empire succumbed to the undermining influence of the self- 
determination propaganda, but the applications of the prin- 
ciple was limited to a far greater extent than in the Haps- 
burg empire. Only that non-Turkish element whose aid 
had been needed during the war was liberated. The others 
went from one subjection to another. 



CHAPTEE XXXIII 

THE ATTEMPT TO CKEATE A LEAGUE OF NATIONS AT PARIS 
AFTER THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY (1919) 

TO the peace conference, which met at Paris in January, 
1919, were invited representatives of all the nations 
that had been at war, with one or more of the members of 
the central empires coalition. It was not the intention of 
Entente statesmen, however, to let pass out of their hands 
either the initiative or the final decision in regard to mat- 
ters arising at the conference. And, as their object was 
primarily to harmonize the conflicting interests and ideals 
of the Entente powers and the United States, and not to 
reestablish a state of peace between the victors and the 
vanquished, the central empires and their aUies were ex- 
cluded from the conference. From the beginning the or- 
ganizers of the conference arbitrarily divided the mem- 
bers of the victorious coalition into two groups, ''the five 
Principal Allied and Associated Powers with general in- 
terests" and ''the Secondary States with particular inter- 
ests. ' ' Eussia, who had withdrawn from the war after the 
Bolshevist regime superseded the original revolutionary 
government, was left outside altogether. 

Power and resources, not numbers and contribution to 
the victory, decided the category in which each member of 
the coalition was placed. The actual sacrifices of Japan 
and the United States, who were classified as "Principal 
Allied and Associated Powers," had not been as great as 
those of Belgium, Serbia, and Eumania. It was also patent 
that from the point of view of future prosperity and secur- 

381 



382 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ity only France and Italy among the big five had as much 
at stake in the various settlements as the minor European 
members of the coalition. The treaties were made by the 
great powers, who decided among themselves, in accord- 
ance with their own interests, every question that arose. 
Only six plenary sessions were held during the framing of 
the two principal treaties, and the texts of the treaties were 
not communicated to the smaller states or to the enemy 
states until the statesmen of the five principal powers had 
definitely agreed upon terms that amounted to the har- 
monizing of their own ideas and the compromising of their 
own interests. At the second plenary session, when the 
statesmen of the smaller powers protested against this 
high-handed method of procedure, M. Clemenceau, speak- 
ing for his colleagues of the Entente and for President 
"Wilson, refused to entertain the protest on the ground that 
the great powers, whose authority was supported by twelve 
million soldiers, must control the conference.^ 

At the end of May, when the treaty of St. Germain, to 
be presented to Austria, was laid before a plenary session, 
the premiers of the small states most affefcted by its terms 
renewed the protest against the injustice of drafting docu- 
ments that were to have a vital bearing upon their national 
destinies without giving them a voice in the deliberations 
or decisions. Again the doctrine of the great powers was 
set forth, this time by President Wilson, to the effect that 
those who possessed superior strength and resources had 
the right to judge what was best for weaker nations. It 
was understood, of course, that in forming their judgments 

^ " As events turned out, the great powers kept matters in their own hands 
to a much greater extent than was anticipated at the opening of the confer- 
ence, and the bulk of the treaty was made by them alone, and only presented 
to their smaller allies when the time for signature came. . . . An attempt 
of the small powers to assert their rights was nipped in the bud at the 
second meeting. The natural result was that the plenary conference played 
only a formal part in the organization." "A History of the Peace Conference 
of Paris" (Institute of international Affairs, London), i, p. 249. 



ATTEMPT TO CREATE LEAGUE OP NATIONS (1919) 383 

tlie strong would exercise wisdom and justice and disin- 
terestedness. 

The organization and methods of the Paris peace confer- 
ence must be taken into consideration in appraising the 
attempt to create a league of nations. It was inevitable that 
the character of the League of Nations, whatever had been 
its original conception, should undergo a modification when 
drafted under such conditions, and that its final organiza- 
tion should conform to the general spirit and purposes of 
the treaties. The idealistic principle of equality of nations 
was denied by the conference. In its place was put a realis- 
tic conception of the privileges and obligations of five great 
powers that had waged a war and won a victory in common 
and who were determined to make an effort to arrive at a 
peace settlement that would confirm and maintain indefi- 
nitely their privileged position. It was natural, therefore, 
that the covenant of the League of Nations should provide 
for a council of nine members, five (the majority) being 
designated as permanent members and four (the minority) 
being elected members. Great Britain, France, Italy, Ja- 
pan, and the United States were given the permanent seats, 
and all the other nations were to fill from their number 
the minority seats. Every nation was to have a place in 
the Assembly of the league. But the real power was vested 
in the Council. 

Along with the thought of safeguarding the authority of 
the five great powers, the framers of the covenant had to 
keep in mind the unwillingness of the great powers to be 
automatically party to any common action that any one of 
them might deem prejudicial to its individual interests, 
or that would deprive a great power of the advantage of 
its superior strength in a dispute with a small power. 
These two inconveniences, which formed — on the technical 
ground of sovereignty — powerful objections to an interna- 
tional organization, were remedied by inserting a clause 



384 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

giving each member of the Council the right of veto and by 
y making voluntary the submission of disputes to the inter- 
national court provided for in article XIV.^ 

In the question of the League of Nations, as in many 
other questions, an honest etfort was made to advance the 
cause of world peace by providing a machinery that would 
lessen the chances of another war breaking out in the same 
manner as the war of 1914. There was also the desire to 
set up an international organization that would take care 
of a host of minor matters of an international character 
and that would facilitate cooperation after the war among 
the various powers in dealing with problems affecting their 
relations with one another and with smaller states. And 
statesmen were sensitive to public opinion, which demanded 
that they devise at Paris some means of improving inter- 
national relations. Most of the advocates of the League 
of Nations idea argued at the time and have reiterated 
since that the important thing was to make a real start 
/ along the road of international association ; and they there- 
fore emphasize the fact that a league of nations was created 
at Paris and has been functioning since. Its impotence in 
the things that count, however, they do not seem to see, 
/ and they refuse to admit that the defects in the original 
covenant make its amendment impossible. The clause, ^'no 
such amendment shall bind any member of the League which 
signifies its dissent therefrom" (article XXVI), prevents 
the League from developing into what President Wilson 
declared that it must be — ' ' an association of all nations for 
the common good of all" — and from fulfilling the sole 
function that will diminish the chances of war arising from 
international disputes — compulsory submission of quarrels 
to an international court. 

* The right of veto was rather a right of withdrawal, but, in numerous 
speeches in defense of the treaty of Versailles, Mr. Wilson interpreted it as a 
^ veto right and emphasized the stipulations of the covenant that enabled any 
mombe- of the League to avoid surrendering its sovereign rights. He thercb" 
admitted that membership in the League did not mean that a state would ever 
have to act against its own interests. 



y 



ATTEMPT TO CREATE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (1919) 385 

The study of world politics shows us how nations, when 
they have become strong, have invariably been a law unto 
themselves, have developed and maintained armies and 
navies on the plea of necessity for national security, and 
have then used this power to advance their commercial in- 
terests by the exploitation of weaker peoples and to impose 
upon all who could not resist them their own interpretation 
of moot questions. 

At Paris the weaker powers were unanimously in favor 
of a league of nations based upon equality of opportunity 
to secure justice in international disputes, equality of op- j 
portunity to participate in world markets, and reciprocity 
in all international dealings. A covenant that would have 
secured these advantages was what President Wilson had 
in mind, but it was impossible to get any great power to y 
surrender the advantages of its privileged position in deal- "^ 
ing with other nations. The original covenant draft was 
modified accordingly, with the result that the League of 
Nations, as embodied in the treaty of Versailles, does not v 
bind the great powers to deal justly with the other states 
or even with each other.^ 

It was generally supposed in the United States that the 
Entente statesmen, with few exceptions, were opposed to y 
the League of Nations, or at least to having it incorporated 
in the treaty of Versailles. The picture of President Wil- 
son forcing the covenant upon an unwilling conference, and /^ 
saving it after it had been sidetracked, is pure fancy. It 

^ Compulsory arbitration or reference of moot questions to an international 
tribunal, which was the original idea, received drastic emasculation in articles 
XIII and XIV, and was further weakened by the provision of article XV that \( 
any recommendation of the Council in the matter of a dispute would have 
to be unanimous to be binding. In article XIII disputes had to be of a kind 
that the parties "recognize to be suitable for submission to arbitration," 
and in a paragraph defining what kind of disputes are suitable the word 
' ' generally ' ' was inserted before ' ' suitable. ' ' Article XIV does not establish 
but merely provides for "plans for the establishment" of a permanent court 
of international justice; the said court is simply "competent to hear and 
determine any dispute of an international character which the parties 
thereto submit to it"; and its opinion upon disputes or questions deferred 
to it by the Council or the Assembly is only ' ' advisory. ' ' 



1 

y 



386 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

is true that Mr. Wilson, like Lord Eobert Cecil and Gen- 
eral Smuts, had pronounced ideas in regard to the cove- 
nant, and that after a draft was agreed upon he regarded 
the league as the most important feature of the treaties. 
But the covenant, as it appears in the treaty of Versailles, 
was prepared in fifteen sessions of the commission in- 
trusted with its drafting, ten of which in the first half of 
February produced the draft submitted to the plenary ses- 
sion of February 14, while the other five, between March 
22 and April 11, completed its revision. The commission 
\ began its work with certain definite limitations, and did not 
' attempt to include in the covenant the conceptions of inter- 
national association as advocated by idealists. "Wlien it 
came to controversial points, like article X and article 
XXII, it accepted the compromises decided upon by the 
heads of states in secret conference and communicated to 
y it. The spirit shown by the members of the commission 
'' was an eminently practical one. They avoided a discus- 
^ sion of proposals that they knew their governments would 
/ not accept, and they did their work in the same way as the 
other commissions, i. e., by embodying in a text the de- 
cisions arrived at by the Council of Ten or the ^'Big Four" 
in every clause where there was a conflict of interest or 
policy among the great powers. 

Far from being opposed to the League of Nations and its 
inclusion in the treaty, the Entente statesmen looked upon 
y it as an excellent means of solving problems, and of secur- 
ing guaranties and help from the rest of the world in en- 
forcing treaty clauses that were to their own particular ad- 
> vantage. Article X guaranteed the territorial status quo 
of the treaties. Article XXII pro^aded for the annexation 
. of the German colonies and a division of the Ottoman Em- 
' pire, under the guise of mandates held \)Y the new pos- 
sessors as trustees of the League of Nations. Equality of 
-/-treatment commercially in mandated territories was guar- 
anteed only to members of the league, thus excluding Ger- 



ATTEMPT TO CREATE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (1919) 387 

many from the markets of her former possessions and of 
the Ottoman Empire.^ 

In addition to these provisions, which have to do with the 
covenant alone, the treaties intrusted to the league the ad- 
ministration of the Saar Basin and the duty of revising, 
at a later date, certain articles relating to inland transpor- y. 
tation that encroached upon elementary rights of sover- 
eignty. In this way the execution of the treaties was bound 
up with the League of Nations, and upon neutrals, by the 
fact of their entrance in the league, was imposed the obli- 
gation of aiding in forcing the defeated powers to carry y 
out treaty provisions that had been dictated to them and 
were conceived in the interest of a limited number of states. 

Criticism of the League of Nations, especially in the 
United States, where it became an issue of internal party 
politics, was bitter and unreasoning, and brought forth ^ 

equally bitter and unreasoning defense. It is difficult to 
find any story or critical estimate of the League of Nations 7 

(or of the work of the Paris peace conference on the whole) 
that is not a polemic. The experience of three years has 
demonstrated, however, the apparent futility of the league 
as an instrument for accomplishing the objects that Mr. 
Wilson and other idealists had in mind as the purpose of 
its existence. Speaking on September 27, 1918, Mr. Wilson ■h 
said; 

"It will be necessary that all who sit down at the peace 
table shall come ready and able to pay the price, the only 
price that will procure a secure and lasting peace, and 
ready and willing to create in some virile fashion the only 
instrumentality by which it can be made certain that the - 
agreements of the peace shall be honored and fulfilled. 
That price is impartial justice in every item of the settle- 
ment, no matter whose interest is crossed, and not only X 

^ Of course, Germany can be admitted ta the League of Nations, but 
France has the power to prevent her admittance, and the French government 
has declared in speeches of successive premiers before the Chamber of Deputies 
that it will oppose the candidacy of Germany until the terms of the treaty of 
yersailles are fulfilled, which will take at least thirty years. 



888 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

impartial justice, but also the satisfaction of the several 
peoples whose fortunes are dealt with. That indispensable 

Y^ instrumentality is a league of nations, formed under cove- 
nants. . . . The impartial justice meted out must involve 

X no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be 

^ just and those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must 

^ be a justice that plaj^s no favorites and knows no standards 

but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned. No 

special or separate interest of any single nation or any 

y group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the 
settlement which is not consistent with the common interest 
of all." 

Although Mr. "Wilson changed his mind as to the prac- 
ticability of an association of nations and a peace settle- 
y ment along the lines indicated in his war speeches, the wis- 
dom of his earlier opinions seems to have been demon- 
strated by events. 

After the signing of the treaties, of which the covenant 
of the League of Nations formed the first articles, prepara- 
tions were made for organizing the secretariat, which was 
installed first at London and then at Geneva. Between 
January 16 and October 28, 1920, the Council of the League 
held ten sessions at London, Paris, Rome, San Sebastian, 
and Brussels. But, both in personnel of the delegates and 
in the importance of the matters passed upon, it was evi- 
dent that the Entente powers did not intend to use the 
League as the organization through which the principal 
questions concerning the application of the treaties and the 
problems arising from the war were to be settled. Vital 
matters were taken up in conferences of the premiers of 
Great Britain, France, and Italy, who decided upon the 
terms of the treaty with Turkey, which had not been set- 
tled by the Paris conference, and all other matters impor- 
tant enough to affect the interests and relations of the three 
y\ powers. Other questions were referred to a council of 

ambassadors in London or in Paris. The Council of the 
League, attended by minor personalities, sometimes dis- 



y 



% 



ATTEMPT TO CREATE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (1919) 389 

cussed major questions, but in no case asserted the right 
of making settlements and carrying them out. 

On Monday, November 15, 1920, the Assembly of the 
League of Nations, with 241 delegates from 41 nations, 
was opened at Geneva, and its sessions continued until 
December 18. A second meeting was held in September, 
1921. Much useful work was accomplished at these two 
meetings, but neither the Council nor the League, during 
the first two years of the League's existence,^ took the 
initiative in the settlement of any dispute, or made a de- 
cision of any kind contrary to the wishes or orders of the 
British, French, and Italian governments. The Assembly 
entirely failed to assert its authority over the Council. ^ 

The latter did what it was told to do, or decided questions 
it was asked to decide, by the British, French, and Italian x/ 
premiers. The numerous questions upon which the states- 
men of the three Entente powers are still of different minds 
have not come before the League of Nations. 

* The formal ratification of the treaty of Versailles was finally completed 
on January 10, 1920, and the League of Nations thus began to function on 
that day. 



y. 



CHAPTEE XXXIV 

THE EEFUSAL OF THE UNITED STATES TO EATIFY THE 
TEEATIES AND ENTEE THE LEAGUE (1919-1921) 

THE yearning of the world for a new international or- 
der, which would tend to make wars less frequent and 
diminish the burden of armaments, did not decrease in 
intensity and did not express itself less emphatically after 
the signing of the treaty of Versailles than before. But in 
every country disappointment over the work of the confer- 
ence at Paris was bitter, and because the covenant of the 
Y League of Nations had been made an integral part of the 
treaty of Versailles the League was discredited along with 
the impracticable treaty provisions. So strong was the 
opposition to the ratification of the treaty of Versailles in 
the United States that the four other treaties were never 
even submitted to the Senate. 

The treaty of Versailles was subjected to long and pene- 
trating criticism in the French Senate and Chamber of 
Deputies. The protests showed: (1) fear that national 
interests had been sacrificed to questionable international 
advantages; (2) uncertainty as to the adequacy of the 
means of enforcing the provisions of the treaty; (3) dis- 
satisfaction with the League of Nations covenant; (4) 
doubt as to the wisdom of attempting to incorporate in one 
document the solution of two different questions — making 
peace with Germany and setting up the machinery of a 
new world order. In Italy and Japan parliamentarians de- 
clared that the treaty was conceived in the interests of 
France in so far as Europe was concerned, and in the in- 
terests of Great Britain outside Europe. France, Italy, 
and Japan ratified the treaty, however, because in definite 

390 



UNITED STATES REFUSES TO RATIFY TREATIES 391 

particulars it did advance French and Japanese interests, 
while Italy was to be the principal beneficiary of the treaty 
with Austria. In every essential matter the treaty was 
advantageous to Great Britain. Since the various arrange- ^ 

ments made at the end of the Napoleonic wars, no interna- 
tional settlement had advanced so strikingly the strategic, >^ 
territorial, political, and economic interests of the British 
Empire.^ Of the principal powers the United States alone 
had gained nothing tangible by the war. 

The treaty fight in the United States Senate is a dramatic 
episode in American history. Its merits and importance 
can hardly be estimated until we have more perspective. 
But, in justice both to Mr. Wilson and to his opponents, as 
well as for the purpose of gaining a clear idea of the issues 
at stake, the popular and prevalent impression of Mr. Wil- 
son as a fanatical idealist or a man unwilling to confess f, 
his failure, and of the Republican senators as partizans 
inspired with the sole motive of discrediting a Democratic 
president, must be corrected. 

During the latter part of the peace conference Mr. Wil- 
son became ill, and his physical condition aif ected his judg- "/^ 
ment. This condition led to a nervous breakdown, so that 
during the critical period of the treaty fight it was doubted 
by many whether he was capable of making reasonable 
decisions. The senators, on the other hand, from the very 
fact of the president's condition, felt that the treaty and 
the covenant needed the most careful scrutiny, and when it / 
was discovered that ratification would mean involving the 

^ Great Britain's principal naval and commercial competitor was ruined 
and bound hand and foot, and the major parts of her colonies were added - 

to the British Empire; the elaborate competitive system — merchant marine, A 

cables, banks, and business interests— erected by German enterprise in every 
part of the world fell chiefly into British hands; the British protectorate 
over Egypt was recognized; the British self-governing dominions were given 
membership in the League of Nations; Great Britain's right to speak for India 
was acknowledged; and no question (present or future) of self-determination 
that might embarrass the British Empire was introduced even by inference 
into the clauses of the treaty. This new status was guaranteed by article X, j 

which had been cut dovsm by omitting the qualifying clauses suggested by p 

President Wilson in his original draft of the article. 



392 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

United States in obligations and responsibilities that we 
were asked to assume without compensatory advantages, 
reservations were proposed. There is no reason to believe 

j^ that the senators who voted consistently against ratifica- 

*^ tion without reservations were not inspired by enlightened 
devotion to duty. A proposal was before them to abandon 
what had been the policy of the United States in foreign 

1/ affairs since the foundation of the republic, and yet no ad- 

^^ vantages either to the world or to America were convinc- 
ingly set before them as a reason for so drastic a step. 

Mr. Wilson had ample warning of the opposition that 
would be made to the unqualified acceptance of the League 
of Nations as drafted at Paris, but he failed to take the 
steps that might have induced the Senate to ratify the 
treaty. He did not perceive that American public opinion 

y would not follow him in the successive compromises that he 
had felt compelled to make during the Paris negotiations. 
Faced with the alternatives of inviting the participation 

\{ of the Senate in the peace conference or of taking the 
American people into his confidence each time he made a 
compromise, he chose neither course. He could have over- 
ridden the Senate's opposition only if he had had the people 
behind him. Of all the points he took to Paris, the last to 

y give up, in view of the attitude of the Senate, was that of 
''open covenants, openly arrived at." Yet for weeks 
secrecy shrouded the conditions of peace dictated to the 

)^ Germans, and, even after the terms were made known in 
European countries, Mr. Wilson forbade their publication 
in the United States. During these weeks the President 
lost the confidence of the American people, and in every 

Y successive step of the treaty fight public opinion rallied 

'^ more and more to the side of the senators who refused to 
accept the treaty without reservations. After his nervous 
breakdown the president, either because of mental inca- 

^ pacity or because of the mistaken advice of those around 
him, persisted in believing that the people were in favor of 



UNITED STATES REFUSES TO RATIFY TREATIES 393 

ratifying the treaty as lie had brought it back from Paris. 

Immediately after the treaty of Versailles was signed 
President Wilson left Paris. He arrived in New York on 
July 8 and, in person, on July 10 presented the treaty for 
ratification. In his speech recommending that the Senate 
give its assent to the treaty, Mr. "Wilson made it clear that 
he expected his decisions during the course of the negotia- K. 
tions to be approved without modification in any particular. 
It was his thesis that reservations to the articles creating , 
the League of Nations would vitiate the whole treaty. This 
attitude he never modified. When the Foreign Eelations 
Committee reported the treaty to the Senate with reserva- 
tions, three groups formed : most of the Democrats favored 
ratification without reservations ; most of the Republicans >^ 
favored ratification with reservations ; and a small group, 
called ''bitter-enders," were determined to reject the whole 
treaty. The debates closed on November 15, 1919. If the ;; 
minority Democrats had given in to the majority Eepubli- 
cans, it would have been possible to secure more than the 
two thirds necessary for ratification. An effort was made 
to compromise on the reservations in order to secure the 
acceptance of the treaty. This last chance of ratification 
was blocked by the president, who advised his followers in -v,; 
the Senate to vote against the treaty if any reservations 
were appended to it. On November 19 the treaty definitely 
failed to pass the Senate, the Democratic minority and the"^/ 
bitter-enders combining to defeat ratification. 

President Wilson could have changed his tactics and have 
resubmitted the treaty with the intimation that he was 
willing to accept the more important of the fifteen reserva- Y 
tions, with modifications in their wording. But he did not 
choose to do so. On the contrary, he declared that the ^ 
question of the League of Nations and his attitude towards 
ratification would have to be submitted to the people at the i 
presidential election a year later. This would be, in his 
own language, ' ' a solemn referendum. " "^ 



394 ^AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

During 1920 the tendency of the Entente premiers to 
usurp the functions of the League Council, or to ignore it, 
v/ and the continued state of war and conflicting ambitions in 
Europe, seemed to confirm the wisdom of Senator Lodge 
and his colleagues of the majority. "Wlien the treaty ques- 
tion was finally submitted to the people on November 2, 

\/ 1920, after a campaign in which the League of Nations 

r played a leading part, Mr. Wilson's candidate, ex-Gover- 
nor Cox of Ohio, was defeated by an overwhelming vote. 
Senator Harding, also of Ohio, who had advocated the 

y reservations in the Senate, received the largest majority 
ever given a presidential candidate. 

Many considerations of internal politics entered into the 
presidential election, and it is doubtful whether the vote 
/ indicated the unwillingness of the American people to com- 
mit the United States to the principle of an international 
association. In fact, leading Eepublicans, including nota- 

x/ bly ex-President Taf t, although they supported Mr. Hard- 
ing, had taken throughout the treaty fight the position that 
the fears of the senators who made the reservations to the 
^ covenant were not wholly justified. In November, 1919, 

/ only the uncompromising tactics of President Wilson pre- 
vented treaty ratification and our entry into the League. 

\ There is no doubt that public opinion would have approved 
at that time ratification with very mild reservations. 

But the psychological moment for cooperating with our 
associates in the World War by a belated acceptance of the 
Paris treaties had passed. The aftermath of the war had 

w revealed a reversion on the part of European governments 

' to the diplomatic methods and ambitions for which we had 
pilloried Germany. With the German imperial govern- 
ment no longer a disturbing factor in international politics, 

Y the relations between great powers and small states and 
among the great powers themselves seemed to show no 

y marked improvement over 1914. It began to be realized 
that if the treaty of Versailles had been accepted we should 



UNITED STATES REFUSES TO RATIFY TREATIES 395 

logically have had to ratify the other treaties. Taken as a 
whole, the Paris settlements were beginning to cause sharp 
differences of opinion among the Entente Powers in Europe y 
and the Near East, and our own State Department had ^ ' 
become involved in difficulties with Great Britain over the 
interpretation of the mandate programs.^ Because of Ire- 
land, Egypt, Persia, and India, American public opinion ''/ 
was turning against Great Britain. The unreasoning pres- 
sure that France put upon Germany, French encourage- 
ment to Polish imperialism, the betrayal by France of the 
Armenians in Cilicia, the failure of Japan to adjust the y 
Shantung difficulty with China, and Japan's insistence 
upon refusing the United States freedom of cable com- 
munications through the island of Yap destroyed American 
faith in the desire of our late associates to cooperate with 
us in establishing a new world order. We began to realize 
that at Paris the other powers had feathered their nests 
well, and had expected that the United States would be')( 
willing to share in responsibilities without demanding to 
share in privileges. 

War with Germany and Austria was terminated by a 
joint congressional resolution passed by the House of Eep- 
resentatives on June 30, by the Senate on July 1, and signed Y- 
by President Harding on July 2, 1921. On August 25 the 
American high commissioner in Berlin and the German 
foreign minister signed a treaty declaring at an end the^ 
technical state of war that had continued ever since the 
armistice. The treaty of Berlin was very brief. Germany 
assented to the terms of the American resolution of July 
2, and agreed to give to the United States all the rights and ^ 
advantages stipulated in the treaty of Versailles, with the '^ 
exception of certain portions specifically mentioned as ex- 
cluded at the volition of the United States. The repudiated ^ 
portions were : the covenant of the League of Nations ; the Y 

^ For these differences of opinion among the Entente powers see Chapter XL, 
and for the American interpretation of the mandate programs see Chapter 
XLVI. 



396 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

boundaries of Germany; the political clauses for Europe; 
the sections concerning German rights outside Germany, 
with the exception of the cession of the German colonies 
**in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers"; 
and the provisions concerning the organization of labor. 
By these omissions the United States dissociated herself 
from the other signatories of the treaty of Versailles in 

r regard to the responsibility for the war, the trial of war 
criminals, and the guaranties for the fulfilment of the 
treaty. The right was reserved to participate in a repara- 

- tions commission or any other commission established un- 
der the treaty. But "the United States is not bound to 

v^ participate in any such commission unless it shall elect to 
do so." 

From the point of view of our associates, the making of 
a separate treaty of this character was preposterous and 

V denoted the return of the United States to the old rigid 
policy of refusal to participate in Old World affairs. 

, Without giving us advantages such as they had gained 

V by the treaty of Versailles, the Entente Powers had hoped 
to secure our aid in its enforcement. But American 

w idealism could not answer a call to the renunciation of 

particular interests and to world service that was not 

, answered by the other nations. Our treaty with Germany 

/ was an inglorious tennination of what had started out to 

be a crusade. But it was to be expected that we should 

tire of a monopoly of the crusading spirit. Public opinion, 

therefore, received the news of the separate treaty Avith 

^,' Germany, followed by similar treaties mth Austria and 

' Hungary, without protest; and these agreements were 
promptly ratified. 

v^ In reality the United States did only what the other vic- 
torious powers had done. We negotiated and concluded 
. treaties strictly on the basis of our own interests, and, as 

^ we had no interests at stake in the pohtical clauses of the 
treaty of Versailles, with the single exception of the Ger- 



UNITED STATES REFUSES TO RATIFY TREATIES 397 

man colonies,^ our government refused to assume any obli- 
gation under the clauses pertaining to political settlements 
in or outside Europe, except in the case of the colonies. 
But we reserved aU the privileges in economic matters that 
a victorious nation is accustomed to exact of a defeated yi 
enemy. At the same time, being dubious about the value of 
the concessions wrung from Germany at Versailles, we 
were careful not to bind ourselves to participate even in the '^ 
reparations commission. 

After three and one fourth years of maintaining an army 
of occupation on the Rhine, the American government noti- 
fied the Allied governments that the cost of the armies of 
occupation was considered by us a first lien on German 
reparations. In his note of March 11, 1922, Secretary 
Hughes presented a bill of $240,000,000, the cost of the 
army of occupation up to the end of 1921, and contended 
that provision should be made for the payment of this sum 
in the apportionment of the sums that were being paid by 
Germany. The Allied governments replied that the United 
States had no claim on any sums collected by the repara- 
tions commission, because (a) we were not signatories of 
the treaty of Versailles ; (h) Germany had bound herself in 
such a way by that treaty that she had no authority to make 
a separate treaty with the United States, which involved 
financial settlements; and (c) that the United States had 
taken no part in collecting from Germany the sums against 
which she was attempting to place a lien. 

Our flare-up of idealism might have accomplished much 
in establishing a sane and magnanimous world peace. The 
Paris conference had proved, however, that our associates .^ 
were unwilling to follow us along the path of Mr. Wilson's < 
fourteen points. As each great power advanced and de- 

^ Article 119 reads: "Germany renounces in favor of the Principal Allied 
and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions. ' ' 
That the United States did not accept the treaty of Versailles does not alter 
the fact that the United States has become one of the title-holders of the 
former German colonies. 



398 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

% fended its particular interests, American enthusiasm 
cooled. The revelations of intrigues and conflicts of inter- 
ests in the Near East ; the expenditures of enormous sums 
for military purposes by our former associates, great and 
K. small, who could not pay even the interest on their indebt- 
^ edness to us ; the refusal to consider our interests in the 
distribution of the German cables ; and the effort to exclude 
American capital and trade from mandated territories, 
gradually turned American public opinion from eagerness 
to cooperate with Europe to indiiference. When Secretary 
v^ Hughes declined the invitation to the economic conference 
'' at Genoa, scheduled for April, 1922, the policy of refusing 
to sit in a conference that seemed to us more political than 
economic was generally approved. 

That the United States has not abandoned the hope of 
constructive international cooperation in the settling o£' 
V world problems, however, was indicated by the Limitation 
/^of Armaments Conference, which assembled by invitation 
of the American government at Washington on November 
12, 1921, with nine powers participating. Public opinion 
supported President Harding when he issued the call to 
y the conference, showed great interest in its proceedings, 
and indorsed the program for limitation of armaments and 
for emancipating China which the United States was par- 
tially successful in having adopted. The later opposition 
in the Senate indicated the constitutional weakness of our 
^■^ government for carrying on international negotiations 
rather than any marked hostility to the treaties on the part 
of the American people. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

WOELD POLITICS AND THE TEEATY OF VEESAILLES 
(1919-1922) 

THE peace conference that assembled at Paris in Janu- 
ary, 1919, undertook four tasks : to reestablish peace 
by imposing treaties upon Germany, Austria, Hungary, 
Bulgaria, and Turkey; to bring together all the nations of 
the world into an organization for the preservation of peace 
and for the amelioration of political, economic, and social 
conditions through international cooperation ; to dispose of 
the territories wrested and the indemnities exacted from the 
defeated enemies; and to harmonize the conflicting ambi- 
tions and policies of the principal victors so that the gen- 
eral world supremacy, which their union had given them, 
might remain permanently theirs. 

The effort to attain these objects made necessary the ex- 
clusion of the minor allies from a voice in the decisions, the 
abandonment from the principle of ''open covenants, openly 
arrived at," and the partial, if not complete, repudiation 
of the pre-armistice agreement with Germany. The minor 
allies were excluded because they had not won the war and 
would not be called upon to guarantee the peace; open 
diplomacy was discarded because it was regarded as im- 
practicable and would certainly have defeated the objects 
which the Entente statesmen had in mind; and the pre- 
armistice agreement was ignored because the framers of 
the treaty of Versailles were sure that Germany would have 
done the same thing had she been in their place. ^ Mr. Wil- 

* These are not the opinions of the writer, but are a summing up of the 
argnments advanced in the speeches of the leaders of the conference when 
they were explaining and defending their attitude on these questions. 

399 



400 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

son and other members of the American delegation con- 
tended for a just and practicable peace, but they were 
iX worsted by the Entente statesmen, whose concern was not 
a durable world peace but the advancement of their world 
policies.^ 

The treaty of Versailles has been subjected to a minute 
analysis and criticism and has been attacked and defended 
by the leading men of our day. Several of those who signed 
it have denounced it bitterly, along the lines of the protest 
of General Smuts, who declared at the time he signed: 

''The promise of the new life, the victory of the great 
human ideals, for which the peoples have shed their blood 
and their treasure without stint, the fulfilment of their 
aspirations towards a new international order and a fairer, 
better world, are not written in this treaty. . . . There are 
territorial settlements which in my humble judgment will 
need revision. There are guaranties laid down which we 
all hope will soon be found out of harmony with the new 
peaceful temper and unarmed state of our former enemies. 
There are punishments foreshadowed over most of which 
a calmer mood may yet prefer to pass the sponge of obliv- 
ion. There are indemnities stipulated which can not be 
exacted without grave injury to the industrial revival of 
Europe, and which it will be in the interests of all to render 
more tolerable and moderate. There are numerous pin- 
pricks which will cease to pain under the healing influences 
of the new international atmosphere. 

''The real peace of the peoples ought to follow, complete, 
and amend the peace of the statesmen. ... I am confident 
that the League of Nations will yet prove the path of escape 
for Europe out of the ruin brought about by this war. . . . 
The enemy peoples should at the earliest possible date join 

^Thia was definitely stated by M. Clemenceau to the Chamber of Deputies 
on January 2, 1919, and by Mr. Wilson in several interviews and speeches 
V after the conference, notably with members of the Senate committee on foreign 
affairs, when he explained that he had been forced at Paris to acknowledge 
the priority of the secret agreements among Ihe Entente powers over his 
' ' fourteen points. ' ' Although most of these agreements had been concluded 
during the war and after Entente statesmen had proclaimed the idealistic 
objects for which they were fighting, they were brought forward as sacred 
obligations. Had not the principal object of the war been to uphold "the 
sanctity of treaties"? 



THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919-1922) 401 

the League, and in collaboration with the Allied peoples 
learn to practise the great lesson of this war, that not in 
separate ambitions or in selfish domination, bnt in common 
service for the great human causes, lies the true path of 
national progress." 

Like President Wilson, General Smuts had placed too 
much hope in the League of Nations, and had been willing 
to compromise with the aims and methods of the old diplo- 
macy in order to get the covenant of the League written 
into the treaty. The threefold demand of those who op- 
posed the ''real peace of the peoples" was: punishments, 
reparations, and guaranties. The first two could be assured 
only by the third. Much has been written about the atmos- 
phere of hatred and resentment at the Paris conference, w 
and about the fear of statesmen to defy public opinion. 
But were the men who determined the policies of the confer- 
ence really swayed by bitterness and passion or by the )i 
clamor of the people for a punitive peace"? The feeling 
against Germany that undoubtedly existed in Entente coun- 
tries and in the United States was used to justify treaty / 
terms unique in history, and also to explain the failure of 
the Wilsonian principles. But the student of world politics 
finds in the treaty not only the realization of hopes cher- 
ished since the early days of the war and written into secret 
treaties, but also the triumph of th-^ories advocated long 
before the World War by writers and statesmen who be- 
lieved that the European nations were engaged in a struggle 
for existence. The carefully elaborated policies advanced 
during the Paris conference demonstrate the pr^evalence of 
the beUef that the attitude of nations towards one another 7 
can be summed up in the primitive formula, ''Your hfe or 
mine. ' ' 

The trial of the kaiser and war criminals, the acknowl- 
edgment of Germany's responsibility for the war, and the 
admission on the part of Germany that she owed an in- 
demnity larger than her capacity to pay were the three 



^ 



402 AN INTKODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

points written into the treaty that put the German people 
at the mercy of their victors. 

It was fully realized that no German government could 
bring to book the kaiser and high officers of the army and 
navy upon charges preferred by their enemies, that it was 
against human nature for an entire nation to avow itself 
wholly and solely in the wrong, and that payment of the 
sums named in the treaty would mean that Germany, upon 
the basis of the world trade figures of 1913, should be al- 
lowed to enjoy immediately the privilege of monopolizing 
, more than half of the whole world's trade. Punishments 
K and reparations, in the form provided for by the treaty of 
Versailles, were impossibilities, if not absurdities. Hence, 
\,/ failing to punish her sovereign and national heroes, and 
^ defaulting in indemnity payments, Germany would have 
to submit to the permanent stranglehold of the guaranties. 
The treaty thus gave the Entente powers the right to 
)( destroy Germany as a world power and to make it impos- 
sible for her ever to regain political and commercial pres- 
^ ^ t tige outside Europe. Unless we realize the deliberate in- 
f V tention of the treaty, couched in unmistakable terms, we 
; ^ can not understand the aftermath of the Paris conference 
^ in Europe and the consistent attitude of France. The 
^ framers of the treaty of Versailles had no illusions about 
^* ^ the trial of war criminals or the ability of Germany to pay 
^ the sums they intended to demand. But by making it im- 
\^ possible for Germany not to default they would hold in 
' ^ Y their hands indefinitely the means of preventing her from 
aspiring to regain her political and commercial influence 
throughout the world. 

If it endures, the treaty of Versailles will mark the 

[ disappearance of Germany as a world power, just as the 

. , ~- treaty of St. Germain marks the disappearance of Austria- 

{ 1 U \V Hungary as a world power. For the treaty took away Ger- 

' \ 1^'-^ '^ many 's army, navy, and merchant marine; restricted her 

i --X^ r'^'^ir service; expelled her subjects from, and confiscated 




THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919-1922) 403 

their enterprises and individual property in, the Near East 
and Far East and in all the countries of the victorious 
coalition ; put an end to German missionary effort, Catholic 
and Protestant, in Africa and Asia ; forbade the export of 
German capital ; and placed Germany 's foreign trade under 
the control of a commission made up of appointees of com- 
petitor nations from whose decision there is no appeal. 
Germany lost her cables, her foreign banks and commercial 
houses ; she agreed to an export tax on her products, to be 
fixed by her competitors ; she consented to internationalize 
her rivers under foreign commissions, and to allow her 
neighbors to use her canals and railways and certain of 
her ports independently of German control. Since reci- 
procity was not promised in the disarmament, transporta- 
tion, and economic clauses of the treaty, Germany virtually 
signed away her sovereignty and put herself into the hands 
of receivers. 

From the point of view of world politics the treaty of 
Versailles marked a new stage in the struggle of European 
nations for world power. Precedents were set that, if 
successfully maintained, will make the investments of for- 
eigners in every country of the world dependent solely upon 
the strength of their own government or its abihty to form 
and maintain alliances with dominant powers. Up to the 
time of the treaty of Versailles international law distin- 
guished between the property of a government and that of 
its nationals. Private property was not considered liable 
to seizure. According to the treaty of Versailles, a bel- 
ligerent country, within its own dominions or those of its 
allies, has the right to confiscate property of any nature 
belonging to subjects of an enemy country, and, if victorious 
at the end of the war, to compel the government of the de- 
feated country to agree to indemnify its own nationals for 
property thus confiscated. 

The treaty of Versailles divided Germany's overseas 
possessions among the British, French, and Japanese, and 



404 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

canceled the concessions and leases and took away the prop- 
erty of Germans in the former territories of the Ottoman 
Empire, Egypt, Siam, China, and the parts of the world 
under the domination of the victorious colonial powers. 
Germany renounced her participation in international com- 
missions, and her privileges of extraterritoriality in coun- 
tries where the European powers and the United States 
enjoyed a special regime for residents and traders. But the 
victorious powers did not give up their own enjoyment of 
these privileges. 

One third of the industrial population of Europe is there- 
fore deprived of any part, on equal terms, in world markets 
and in the exploitation of the rest of the world. The treaty 
of Versailles has taught the dispossessed a lesson very dif- 
ferent from that General Smuts hoped they would learn 
' ' in collaboration with the Allied peoples. ' ' For the treaty 
is the triumph of ''separate ambitions" and "selfish domi- 
nation" and denies the principle of "common service for 
the great human causes." The Germans have learned that 
defeat in war brings personal disaster as well as national 
humiliation, and that if a man wants to be sure of his abil- 
ity to trade on equal terms with other nations and keep 
/ what he has created in other parts of the world, he must be 
y the subject of a power that is able to develop opportunities 
for its nationals and protect them in the enjoyment of those 
opportunities by possessing superior force and knowing 
how to use it. 

When we consider the origins of the World War and the 
manner in which the Germans carried on their side of the 
conflict, we may think the punishment none too severe. Un- 
■ fortunately, the lesson is driven home elsewhere than in 
' Germany. The aftermath of the war has shown that Brit- 
V ish, French, Italians, Japanese, and Americans are un- 
willing to trust one another. They believe that their ' ' place 
in the sun" will be made secure only by their own argu- 
ments and by a vigilant and aggressive foreign policy. The 



"'^^■*^ ^'a*^ 



■*^i*. 






THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919-1922) 405 

greater their political and economic interests in various 
parts of the world, the more they will strive to defend them 
by their own efforts. 

A reading of the German observations on the terms of 
the treaty of Versailles (May 29, 1919) and the answer of 
the Allies (June 16) is necessary if one would understand 
the implications of the various principles that inspired the 
peace terms. The Germans protested against the one- 
sided application of what the Allies had considered the ful- 
filment of ideals. Disarmament, self-determination of 
peoples, liberation of natives in colonies from exploitation, 
abolition of capitulations in Asiatic countries, cancelation 
of leases and concessions, non-fortification and free pas- 
sage of the Kiel Canal, internationalization of waterways, 
leases at ports, a free port at Danzig for a landlocked state, y 
unrestricted through transit on canals and railways, pun- / 
ishment of officers and soldiers guilty of inhuman conduct 
in war, trial of rulers and ministers accused of having 
been responsible for the war, a league of nations, an inter- xl-^.^. «^ 
national labor commission, restoration of the loot from iS^"^"--^ - 
museums to invaded states, cancelation of loans foisted on .-^^^^ .. ... 
weak states at large discounts and usurious rates of inter- 
est, waiving of the Chinese Boxer indemnity, nullification 
of treaties and restoration of indemnities obtained by 
force — none of these provisions is open to objection. They 
all mark a distinct step forward in the progress of civiliza- 
tion, and in their ensemble they represent the evil results 
and at the same time the motivating causes of world 
politics. 

But the embarrassing difficulty that their inclusion in 
the treaty of Versailles has raised for the victorious powers 
is the finding of a ground that will at the same time justify 
their imposition upon the enemy and the refusal of the > 
victorious powers to apply them, or analogous principles, 
to themselves. In their reply to the Germans the Entente 
Powers took the position that everything demanded of 



406 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

Germany was just and reasonable in itself, but that the 
reason for the demands was the fact that Germany was 
responsible for the war and had to be punished. Eighteen 
V months later Premier Lloyd George was correct in stating 
that the basis of the treaty of Versailles was Germany's 
v^war guilt. In the final analysis, however, the acknowledg- 
^ ment of her guilt, and the ability to impose penalties be- 
cause of it, lay in the verdict of an ordeal by battle. Hence, 
y the basis of the treaty was in reality the victory of the 
Entente powers. 

As the aftermath of the treaty of Versailles falls heavily 
upon the world and brings complications of all sorts. for 
the victorious powers in their relations with European and 
non-European peoples, we see that the stipulations inserted 
in the treaty to right wrongs, make restitutions, and remedy 
geographical and economic inequalities can no more be 
limited in their application to the vanquished powers than 
was the principle of self-determination during the war. 
From disarmament down to the Boxer indemnity, most of 
the demands made upon Germany would have been justified 

X and possible of fulfilment had the victors bound themselves 
to follow the same principles in their deahngs with other 
peoples. With reciprocity in all matters where reciprocity 

')^ would have been for the common good, the treaty of Ver- 
sailles would have been a peace of justice. Without reci- 
procity it was a peace of force, and its terms were possible 

X of execution only so long as the force that caused the Ger- 
mans to sign the treaty continued to be applied to make 
them execute it. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

WOELD POLITICS AND THE TEEATY OF ST. GEEMAIN 
(1919-1922) 

THE answer of President Wilson to Austria-Hungary's 
peace overture of October 7, 1918, was one of the most 
important documents issued by a belligerent government 
during the war. It was the death-warrant, not only of the 
Dual Monarchy, but also of a dynastic union of peoples and 
states that had existed throughout the modern period of 
European history. The American president announced 
that the great powers were not going to use their traditional 
privilege of deciding what were to be the territorial and 
political readjustments and how they were to be effected, 
but that in dealing with the Hapsburg empire they intended 
to apply practically the principle of self-determination, in 
defense of which and for the enforcement of which the 
Entente Allies and the United States claimed to be fighting. 
Four years after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, it is 
interesting to go back to the assurance Mr. Wilson's 
despatch contained and subject it to the control of a start- 
ling succession of disturbing events. 

For the first time in history, a great nation, asked to 
make peace with Germany, based the argument of non 
possumus on the ground that the wishes of the peoples to 
be liberated, and not its own interests, the interests of its 
associates, or those of the enemy, were primarily at stake, 
and that the peoples concerned in the readjustment were 
to decide the matter. Was the contention of President 
Wilson practicable, or was the settlement of the Hapsburg 
succession possible only by dictating the treaty terms to the 
successor states in the same way as to the enemy? The 

407 



408 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

disruption of the Hapsburg empire was a momentous de- 
cision, and those who decreed it assumed a grave respon- 
sibility. 

In his speech of September 27, 1918, the president had 
already proclaimed the universality of the ideals for the 
triumph of which the United States threw her weight into 
the balance against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 
order to make clear the exact sentiment of his country he 
took for illustration the infamous treaties of Brest-Litovsk 
and Bukharest. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk showed Ger- 
many's disregard of the rights of nations she purported to 
be liberating from the Eussian yoke. The Poles and the 
Baltic states were not allowed to participate in framing 
the treaty. The treaty of Bukharest showed a conquering 
nation imposing her will by force upon a conquered nation 
and exacting economic privileges that meant an abdication 
of sovereignty for the vanquished. We held up to abhor- 
rence foreign policy based on expediency and force. We 
declared that right and justice must triumph everywhere. 
We encouraged the aspirations to independence of all small 
nations. 

Austria-Hungary, like Russia, but unlike France and 
Italy and Germany, was a political organism, not a nation. 
It had grown through centuries by conquering and annexing 
ahen peoples. Austrians and Hungarians had suppressed 
the freedom and national life of these peoples, but were not 
able to assimilate them. Before the spread of education 
among the masses, the granting of general suffrage, and 
the formation of the habit of newspaper-reading, the Haps- 
burgs ruled comfortably. The great body of the people 
consisted of ignorant peasants, and the land-owning aristo- 
cratic element among the subject races supported the Haps- 
burgs because it was politic to do so. But during the past 
half-century, as the world has been evolving towards democ- 
racy, suppressed nationalities aAvakened to their inferior 
position in the empire. AVhen they tried to assert them- 



THE TREATY OF ST. GERMAIN (1919-1922) 409 

selves politically the Austro-Hungarian oppression became 
severe. After the disastrous war with Germany the Aus- 
trians (east Germans) lost to Prussia the dominant posi- 
tion among the German states of central Europe. They 
were not sufficiently numerous to keep the Hungarians in 
subjection. Consequently in 1867 Germans of Austria and 
Magyars of Hungary formed a compact to transform the 
empire into a dual monarchy. The Magyars won their in- 
dependence.^ After that, they, in turn, practised towards 
smaller races what they had suffered before at the hands of 
the Germans. 

For fifty years the Dual Monarchy continued to exist 
without any spirit of solidarity among the various elements 
in Austria and Hungary. Long before the recent war it 
was predicted that the hybrid regime would not outlive 
Emperor Francis Joseph, who had presided over it during 
all that period. 

Hungarians and Germans were at loggerheads, and each 
of the two dominant elements was in constant conflict with 
the lesser races. But the organism held together, not only 
because it was to the mutual advantage of Austrians and 
Hungarians, but also because the land-owning and indus- 
trial classes among the lesser nationalities realized the 
social and economic advantages of belonging to a large 
state. These classes furnished their full quota of officers 
for the army and navy, and were prominent among the 
functionaries of the Dual Monarchy. Two Czechs, for 
example, were successive premiers during the war. 

In legislative assemblies Austrians and Hungarians were 
able to hold the balance of power by playing one subject 
against another. The Hungarian policy was consistently 

^ By the terms of the Ausgleich of 1867, the empire of Austria and the 
kingdom of Hungary were constitutionally independent of each other, but 
agreed to form a permanent political union on the basis of equality under a 
common sovereign and with foreign affairs and the army and navy and the 
finances of the Dual Monarchy under unified supervision. The commercial 
union, however, could be terminated by either party at the end of any ten- 
year period. 



410 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

one of suppression. This was possible, for even in parts of 
the monarchy inhabited by allogeneous races a majority of 
the land-owners was Magyar. Austria was able to keep a 
semblance of parliamentary life by granting autonomy to 
the Poles in Galicia in return for their support in the 
Vienna Eeichrath. The combination was advantageous to 
the Poles. They formed only a bare majority in Galicia 
over the Euthenians (Ukrainians), and needed the German 
support as much as the Germans needed their support. 
Although the Czechs were the next largest racial element 
in Austria to the Germans, the Austrians were not com- 
pelled to follow the same policy towards them, because Bo- 
hemia was wedged in between Austria, Germany, and 
Eussian Poland. Eussia supported the national aspira- 
tions of Jugo-Slavs in Hungary and Euthenians in Austria, 
but she did not dare to encourage either Poles or Czechs. 
To strengthen their national aspirations would have had a 
dangerous influence upon the situation in Eussian Poland. 
There were two forms of separatist movements in Aus- 
tria-Hungary — national and irredentist. A national move- 
ment is the aspiration to independence, within its former 
political limits, of a subject people. An irredentist move- 
ment is the aspiration to political union with a neighboring 
state of the same blood and language. The Hungarian and 
Czecho-Slovak movements were national; the Ukrainian, 
Eumanian, and Italian movements were irredentist. The 
Poles, confined to the province of Gahcia, were not nation- 
alists to the point of desiring independence, because auton- 
omy under the Austrians was preferable to union with a 
much greater number of Eussian Poles. For the same rea- 
son irredentist propaganda did not move them, and they 
feared that its application, in case of the disruption of the 
empire, would militate against them in eastern Galicia, 
where the great majority was Ukrainian. It is important to 
bear in mind this classification, because it distinguishes 
between problems relating to the Hapsburg dominions alone 



THE TREATY OF ST. GERMAIN (1919-1922) 411 

and problems indissolubly connected with those of neigh- 
boring states. 

Because they stood out clearly from other movements, 
and because we had definite, tangible reasons for encourag- 
ing them, the Czecho-Slovak and the Jugo-Slav movements 
were mentioned specifically in our answer to Austria-Hun- 
gary. The Czecho-Slovaks had been giving us aid against 
our enemies, and the Jugo-Slavs belonged to the same race 
as the Serbians. But when the division of the Hapsburg 
dominions became a task intrusted to a conference in which 
the United States had a leading part, it was found that the 
application of the principle of self-determination, even if 
limited to friends, presented puzzling complications. It 
was as hard to deal with the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo- 
Slavs as with the other emancipated peoples. 

It is probably for this reason that when they drafted the 
treaty dictated to Austria, the principal allied and asso- 
ciated powers were unwilling to call into consultation the 
representatives of the peoples whose destinies were af- 
fected. They feared the effect upon their own harmony 
and upon the purposes they had in mind of claims advanced 
and arguments adduced by the premiers and national lead- 
ers of the east-central and southeastern European nations. 
On May 31, 1919, the day before the presentation of the 
treaty to the Austrians, its text was communicated to the 
peace conference delegates at a plenary session. Ruma- 
nians, Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, and Jugo-Slavs alike pro- 
tested bitterly, but without avail. The Austrian protests 
were equally fruitless. The Austrian delegates signed the 
treaty on September 10, and the Austrian government rati- 
fied it, yielding to hunger pressure, on October 18, 1919. 
The delay of three months between the presentation of the 
terms of peace and the signature of the treaty was due to 
the insistence of Italy upon dictating the military clauses, 
and also the political clauses where her interests were af- 
fected, and the diplomatic effort to reconcile the successor 



412 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

states to the provisions that infringed upon their sover- 
eignty and tended to render them economically dependent 
upon the Entente powers. 

From the beginning of the treaty-making the Allies had 
considered the Hapsburg empire defunct, and had recog- 
nized the separation from the empire of more than thirty 
million of its fifty million inhabitants. Since there was no 
longer a political organism known as the Dual Monarchy, 
Austrians and Hungarians were considered separate peo- 
ples with no bond uniting them. Their only common des- 
tiny was that of being defeated enemies who would have 
to pay the penalty of defeat. In deciding upon the bound- 
aries the three factors ethnography, strategy, and econom- 
X ics were successively applied for the purpose of taking 
. away as much territory as possible from the Austrians and 
Hungarians. History has never given us a sterner example 
X of the age-old principle of vae victis than the treaties of St. 
Germain and Trianon. 

The treaty of St. Germain compelled the Vienna govern- 
ment to renounce outright its two largest and most populous 
provinces, Galicia and Bohemia. The province third in 
size, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, was reduced to a narrow strip 
north of the Brenner Pass. Parts of Styria and Carniola 
were arbitrarily lopped off, and all of the provinces border- 
ing on the Adriatic, the only outlet to the sea, had to be 
abandoned. Moravia and Silesia, essential to Austria not 
only for coal but also for food, were joined with Bohemia 
to form the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. The outlying 
province of Bukowina was given to Rumania. Two thirds 
of the Austrians were left in a circumscribed area under 
the Vienna government, condemned to bankruptcy and 
slow starvation, and although they comprised only one 
fourth of Austria's pre-war population, they were saddled 
with the same reparations terms as Germany. Vienna, the 
third city of Europe, contained thirty-five per cent, of the 
population of independent Austria. It had grown naturally 



K 



THE TREATY OP ST. GERMAIN (1919-1922) 413 

as the capital of an epapire of fifty millions, and it was 
manifest that under the new conditions it could survive and 
the Austrians could exist only by a free exchange of com- y 
modities with the succession states or by union with Ger- 
many. The treaty of St. Germain did not provide for the 
former and it forbade the latter. ^ 

Like the Germans, the Austrian delegates were not al- 
lowed to appear before their judges to plead their case. In 
a written memorandum they pointed out what would follow 
the enforcement of the treaty of St. Germain. From what- 
ever standpoint they were viewed the treaty terms seemed ,^ 
bound to create more causes for wars than they removed. ' 
For, like those of Versailles, they were based upon two dan- 
gerous illusions : the permanent subserviency and isolation 
of the Germanic element among the peoples of Europe, and 
the ability of the non-Germanic states bordering upon post- >, 
bellum Germany and Austria to develop a prosperous in- 
dustrial and commercial life independent of and indifferent 
to the economic and social rehabilitation of the regions 
from Hamburg to Vienna. 

The first illusion is shown in the disposition of the terri- 
tories taken from Austria by the treaty of St. Germain, v 
"When strategic, historical, or economic arguments were 
advanced for separating German population from Austria, -^ 
there was never any hesitation. The principle of nation- v 
ality did not apply to the Austrians. On the other hand, 
economic, strategic, and historical considerations had no ^^^ 
weight when invoked by the Austrians.^ At the Paris con- 
ference it was : ''Heads I win, tails you lose. ' ' One can not 
wade through the mass of documents, reports, and speeches 
relating to the treaty of St. Germain and its aftermath 
without realizing that the f ramers of the treaty ignored the 

^ Only two concessions were made to Austria. A plebiscite was provided 
for in the district of Klagenfurt, which Italy preferred to see remain with 
Austria because its possession by the Jugo-Slavs would embarrass her; and 
a frontier region of west Hungary was awarded to Austria for the obvious 
reason of making bad blood between the two enemy peoples. 



y 



414 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

possibility of a strong Germany in the future moved irre- 
sistibly to war by irredentist propaganda or in a position 
' to join forces advantageously either with Slavs against 
Latins or with Latins against Slavs. In emancipating 
subject peoples the Paris conference in many cases, as in 
the Tyrol and Czecho-Slovakia, simply turned the tables. 
Three millions of Germans, living in regions of the succes- 
y sion states neighboring upon German and Austrian terri- 
tory, were put under the rule of their former subjects. It 
was taken for granted that the German element in Europe 
was so completely crushed by the war that this condition 
y would not give rise to a new era of irredentist propaganda, 
or that the succession states would remain united among 
themselves and in the political orbit of a united entente. 

The second illusion contradicted the great lesson of mod- 
ern economic history, which is the interdependence of na- 
tions. Even if the motives had been of the highest and had 
been carried out in a spirit of altruism, it is doubtful 
whether the economic provisions of the treaty of St. Ger- 
main would have proved less harmful to the tranquillity 
and well-being of the .peoples the treaty emancipated than 
were its political provisions. The Hapsburg empire may 
have been the result of snuffing out the liberties of small 
nations. But there can be no doubt of the material ad- 
vantages, since Europe became dependent upon world 
markets, of belonging to a large political organism. Under 
Franz Josef the Hapsburg dominions enjoyed common rail 
and water communications and the privilege of free inter- 
change of commodities, and at the same time were able to 
build up a merchant marine and a consular system that 
enabled them to compete with the other great powers in 
world markets. 

The treaty of St. Germain separated elements from Aus- 
tria and united them to their ''brothers of blood." Poles 
and Czecho-Slovaks formed free states. But the financial 
and industrial edifice of half a century was destroyed, and 



THE TREATY OF ST. GERMAIN (1919-1922) 415 

notMng was provided to take its place. The succession 
states, deprived of free access to the Mediterranean and 
of a merchant marine, and compelled to establish their 
own diplomatic and consular staffs throughout the world, 
suddenly found themselves unable to count upon the back- 
ing* of a great power in their international relations. And 
their normal and most precious markets were beyond a new 
frontier, on which arose a menacing tariff wall. Moreover, 
the financial and economic prostration of Vienna and the 
chaos in Germany affected them so vitally that there was 
little difference between victors and freedmen on the one 
side and vanquished on the other. 

Austria had no colonies and had not taken part in the 
extra-European struggle for protectorates and spheres of 
influence either before or after becoming a dual monarchy 
with Hungary as an equal partner. Italy was the only 
great power that profited territorially by the destruction 
of the Hapsburg empire, but in the long run Germany 
seems likely to receive a large accession of territory. Un- 
less the successor states join with Austria and Hungary in 
reforming the territories of the old empire into a unitary 
economic and probably political system, by federating, the 
treaty of St. Germain will mark the completion of the unifi- 
cation of Italy and Germany. And if Italians and Slavs 
strive for the mastery of the Balkans the balance of power 
may once more be held by a Germany greater than ever 
before, because she will have lost her alien provinces, which 
were as much a source of weakness as of strength, but wiH 
have gained sovereignty over all the Germans of Europe. 



CHAPTEE XXXVII 

WORLD POLITICS AND THE TREATY OF TRIANON (1919-1922) 

ALTHOUGH the treaty of St. Germain, signed on Sep- 
tember 10, 1919, marked the official end of the Haps- 
burg empire, almost another year elapsed before the terms 
to be imposed upon Hungary were definitely settled. The 
treaty of Trianon, with Hungary, was conceived in the 
same spirit as the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain, and 
Neuilly, and it conformed very closely in its text to the 
treaty of St. Germain. It was not signed, however, until 
June 4, 1920, because of the internal political difficulties of 
the Hungarians, which retarded the establishment of a 
new government; their conflicts with former subject peo- 
ples ; and the unwillingness of the successor states to ratify 
the treaty of St. Germain and to come to an agreement 
among themselves as to a division of the spoils. 

The treaties of Versailles and St. Germain gave birth 
to two new states, Poland and Czecho-Slovakia. Together 
with Italy, these states were the principal beneficiaries of 
the treaty of St. Germain. Italy's territorial interests were 
safeguarded in the terms of the armistice of November 3, 
1918, and in settling the complicated economic and financial 
problems of the Hapsburg inheritance she had the advan- 
tage of a voice in the decisions. For giving in to her point 
of view in matters concerning Austria, France and Great 
Britain were rewarded, in turn, by her willingness to take 
their point of view in regard to the European and world 
liquidation of Germany's assets. Hence Italy received as 
large a share of the inheritance as she wanted, fiscal and 
tariff freedom, and an insignificant financial liability as a 

416 



THE TEE AT Y OF TRIANON (1919-1922) 417 

successor state of the Dual Monarchy. Poland and Czecho- 
slovakia, on the other hand, were not in a position to defy 
the principal allied and associated powers, and, having 
nothing to give and no voice in the treaty decisions, they 
had to take what was given them. They came out of the 
conference with more than they deserved from a territorial 
point of view, but with economic and financial fetters that 
bound them to the Entente powers. In so far as the suc- 
cessor states were concerned, both the territorial and econ- 
omic clauses of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, 
and the special treaty creating Poland, were inspired by the 
political and commercial interests of these powers. 

The Hungarian inheritance raised questions of a differ- 
ent order, and the successor states were not in the same 
relation to the Entente powers or to one another. Italy's 
claims were in conflict with those of the Jugo-Slavs. The 
Jugo- Slavs had joined Serbia, an allied state from the be- 
ginning of the war. The inheritor of eastern Hungary was 
Eumania, another allied state, whose intervention in the 
war had been solicited by the Entente and to whom the 
Entente powers were bound by a secret treaty that prom- 
ised explicit rewards for intervention. To complicate the 
drawing of new boundaries, Serbian and Rumanian claims 
to the banat of Temesvar overlapped. 

During the peace conference a revolution at Budapest 
brought into power a Bolshevist government that for some w' 
months defied the authority of the victorious powers. After 
it was overthrown the Hungarians came to blows with the V 
Rumanians. The Rumanian army, disregarding orders 
from Paris, captured Budapest and proceeded to loot Hun- )? 
gary. Declaring that it was simply taking the reparations 
question into its own hands and getting back what had been 
stolen from Rumania, the Bukharest government, paying no / 
attention to Entente protests, took from Hungary locomo- 
tives and rolling stock, military supplies, and cattle. This 
may have been the quickest method of securing restitution, 



418 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

but it upset the plans and calculations of the experts at 
Paris, who were arranging the economic clauses of the 
treaty with Hungary. 

The impossibility of dealing with the successor states of 
Hungary in the same way as with the successor states of 
Austria was impressed upon the Entente statesmen by an- 
other salient fact in the situation. Czecho-Slovakia was 
recognized as a belligerent in the last months of the war, 
while Poland was the creation of the enemy coalition, and 
was recognized by the victors only by the invitation to take 
part in the peace conference.^ The provisional govern- 
ments set up by the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks after the 
collapse of Germany, and the de facto extension of their 
authority, needed Entente support. The Polish and Czecho- 
slovak frontiers with Germany depended not on their own 
strength but on the good-will of the peace conference. In 

ly regard to Hungary, however, the principal allied and asso- 

^ ciated powers found themselves confronted with a series 
of fails accomplis. By force of arms the Czecho-Slovaks 

v/ took Pressburg (Pozony) from the Hungarians, winning 
for themselves a port on the Danube and control of railway 
communications between Vienna and Budapest. By force 

y of arms the Rumanians occupied Transylvania and a part 
of the banat of Temesvar. Similarly the Serbians were in 

Y control of the rest of the banat and Croatia, Bosnia, and 
Herzegovina, and were contesting Dalmatia with the Ital- 
ians. The disposal of the greater part of Hungary and of 

A the Adriatic provinces of Austria was, therefore, not in the 
hands of the principal allied and associated powers. They 
could not say to Rumania and Serbia what they said to 
Poland and Czecho-Slovakia: ''You are our creation and 
your existence depends upon our good- will. ' ' 

The treaty of St. Germain contained an article against 
which the successor states (with the exception of Italy, who 
was not to be bound by it) protested with vehemence at 

^On January 18, 1919, six days after the conference opened. 



THE TREATY OF TRIANON (1919-1922) 419 

the eighth plenary session of the conference on May 31, 
1919. It appears in identical terms in articles LI, LVII, 
and LX. As far as the small states were concerned, it 
was the "joker" of the treaty of St. Germain. It read: 

"The Serb -Croat -Slovene (Czecho- Slovak -Rumanian) 
state accepts and agrees to embody in a treaty with the 
principal allied and associated powers such provisions as 
may be deemed necessary by these powers to protect the 
interests of inhabitants of that state who differ from the 
majority of the population in race, language, or religion. 

"The Serb -Croat -Slovene (Czecho -Slovak -Roumanian) 
state further accepts and agrees to embody in a treaty with 
the principal allied and associated powers such provisions 
as these powers may deem necessary to protect freedom of 
transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of other 
nations." 

In the treaty of Trianon this clause v/as dropped for 
Czecho-Slovakia and was modified for Jugo-Slavia and 
Rumania in articles XLIV and XL VII to read: 

"The Serb-Croat-Slovene (Rumanian) state recognizes 
and confirms in relation to Hungary its obligation to accept 
the embodiment in a treaty with the principal allied and 
associated powers of such provisions as may be deemed 
necessary by these powers to protect the interests of inhabi- 
tants of that state who differ from the majority of the pop- 
ulation in race, language, or religion, as well as to protect 
freedom of transit and equitable treatment for the com- 
merce of other nations." 

Article CCCI of the treaty of St. Germain, repeated in 
article CCLXXXV of the treaty of Trianon and CCIX of 
the treaty of Neuilly, reestablished the pre-war Danube 
commission of the treaty of Berlin. But of the riparian 
states only Rumania was to be represented, with one vote. 
The other three commissioners were to be British, French, 
and Italian. The transportation clauses of the treaties im- 



/ 



420 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

posed upon the successor states disabilities similar to those 
imposed upon enemy states. 

The heart of the treaties lies in the clauses quoted above, 
and their modification in the treaty of Trianon denotes a 
partial victory of the small states against the effort of the 
Entente powers to control the internal political and eco- 
nomic life of the successor states of Austria-Hungary. 

The famous minorities article of the treaty of St. Ger- 
main, with the economic clause added to it, shows how far 
the Entente powers were ready to go to infringe upon the 
sovereign rights of the states created or greatly increased 
in area by the victory over the central powers. President 
Wilson, who was ignorant of the real meaning of the minor- 
ities articles, tried to explain and justify the limitations of 
sovereignty imposed on the successor states by the fact 
that if guaranties were not given new wars might arise, 
the burden of and responsibilities for which would fall 
upon the principal allied and associated powers. 

The representatives of the successor states, however, 
argued from similar clauses in the treaty of Berlin that the 

K intention was not to protect minorities but to give the great 
powers an excuse for intervening in the internal affairs of 
small states and to wrest from them economic concessions 
under threat of calling attention to non-fulfilment of such 

yf promises. Specific instances of this form of political pres- 

^ sure that amounted to blackmail could be cited. If it were 
necessary to make international treaties in regard to the 

)^> protection of minorities in independent constitutional 
states, why was Italy, also a successor state and heir to 
large minorities, not asked to subscribe to these clauses? 
And were the principal allied and associated powers willing 

y^ to give international pledges for the protection of minori- 
ties in their own dominions? The small states wanted to 
know why they were to be responsible to '*the Principal 

y Allied and Associated Powers" and not to the League of 
Nations, and what relation the second paragraph of the 



THE TREATY OF TRIANON (1919-1922) 421 

minorities article, which concerned commerce, had to the 
first paragraph. 

It will be noted that in the treaty of St. Germain the 
successor states (except Italy) were not asked to come to 
an understanding with the principal allied and associated 
powers about ''provisions to protect freedom of transit 
and equitable treatment for the commerce of other nations" 
on the basis of reciprocity, but were ordered to agree with- 
out reservation — just as enemy states had been ordered to 
do — to ''such provisions as these powers may deem neces- 
sary." In the treaty of Trianon the principal allied and 
associated powers remain the arbiters for the protection 
of minorities, but their control of internal transportation 
and commerce is eliminated. They remain, however, mas- 
ters of the great waterway of south-central and south- 
eastern Europe^ able to use it in their own interests for 
the furtherance of their own shipping and commerce, with- ' 
out any reference to the peoples (except the Kumanians) 
to whom it is a vital means of communication with the out- 
side world. Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo- 
slavia, and Bulgaria are not represented on the Danube y 
commission. 

It is impossible to go into a detailed examination of the 
treaty of Trianon. But it, like the treaty of St. Germain, 
exhibits the principles inspiring the world policies of domi- 
nant powers. These powers believe that their strength 
gives them the right to assert the transcendency of their ./- 
political and economic interests in every part of the world. 
There are two weights and two measures, one for them- 
selves and those who are strong enough to defy them, and 
the other for weaker peoples. And they are willing to 
grant privileges to weaker states and to protect them only ■,^, 
if in exchange their own paramount authority and their 
special interests are recognized. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

WOELD POLITICS AND THE TREATY OF NEUILLY (1919-1922) 

BULGARIAN plenipotentiaries were summoned to 
Paris at the end of July, 1919, and shut up in the 
Chateau de Madrid for seven weeks before they received 
the draft of the treaty. As in the case of the other enemy 
delegations, no opportunity was afforded them to present 
their point of view or to discuss the terms of the treaty 
before it was framed. When the draft of the treaty was 

\/ received, written remonstrances and suggestions were al- 
lowed and were answered in detail. But the Bulgarians 
were told what the Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians 

y had been told, i. e., that they had been responsible for the 
/ war and had conducted it in a barbarous manner, and that 
the various penalties imposed upon them were justified not 
only because of their past conduct but because they could 
not be trusted in the future. An ultimatum, requiring sig- 
nature within ten days as an alternative to the denuncia- 

\f tion of the armistice, made the Bulgarians realize that 

f" there was to be no difference between the treatment ac- 
corded them and that accorded the central empires. The 

V treaty between the Alhed powers and Bulgaria was signed 
at Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 27, 1919. 

In conjunction with the other treaties, the treaty of 

Neuilly makes a radical shift in the balance of power in 

southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Even after the 

y treaty of Bukharest, Bulgaria remained larger and more 

populous than Serbia and Greece. From the Paris peace 

y conference she emerged diminished in territory and popu- 
lation, while her neighbors became countries so much 

,422 



THE TREATY OF NEUILLY (1919-1922) 



423 



larger than herself that it is difficult to justify the strategic 
frontiers of the treaty of Neuilly, which were drawn in 
disregard of the principle of nationalities and of the eco- 
nomic necessities of the Balkan peoples. The figures speak 
for themselves : 





1914 


1921 




SQUARE 
MILES 


POPtTLATION 


SQUARE 
MILES 


POPULATION 


Bulgaria 


47,750 
53,454 

33,900 
42,000 


5,500,000 
7,700,000 

4,600,000 
4,800,000 


45,000 
113,221 

101,250 
60,000 


5,200,000 


Eumania 

Serbia (or Jugo- 
slavia) 

Greece* 


16,101,000 

13,635,000 
7,500,000 







If the Entente statesmen had observed the eleventh of 
the fourteen points of President Wilson, they could have 
taken a great step towards permanent peace in the Balkans. 
It was possible to have drawn the Macedonian frontier of 
Bulgaria in accordance with ethnic considerations, to have 
insisted upon Rumanian agreement to the return of the 
southern Dobrudja,^ and to have left Bulgaria an unham- 
pered outlet in western Thrace to the ^gean Sea. Eu- 
mania had more than doubled in population and in area, 
and Serbia had tripled. Greece, enlarged for the second 
time within a decade, still had glorious opportunities for 
further expansion. In view of these changes in the rela- 
tive size of the Balkan states, there was no justification for 
taking territory and inhabitants from Bulgaria and for 
thus still further increasing the number of Bulgarians be- 
yond the frontiers of their country. We have already seen 
how Bulgarian irredentism precipitated the second Balkan 

*The figures for Greece are approximate, and will be larger if all Thrace 
is awarded to Greece and if she is successful in retaining the Smyrna region 
of Asia Minor. I am indebted to "A History of the Peace Conference of 
Paris,'' iv, p. 454, for the table given above. 

' This strip between the Danube and the Black Sea was ceded to Eumania 
by Bulgaria in the treaty of Bukharest and is inhabited almost exclusively 
by Bulgarians. 



y 



^ 
^ 



424 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

War and influenced Bulgaria to enter a coalition with tlie 
central empires and Turkey in the effort to attain her 
national unity. ^ 

The avowed intention of the territorial and military pro- 
visions of the treaty of Neuilly was to render Bulgaria 
powerless to make another attempt to upset treaties drawn 
to her disadvantage. This, in justification of despoiling 
Bulgaria, runs through the claims of the other Balkan 
states and it is the answer of the Allied powers to the 
Bulgarian observations on the treaty. But the geographi- 
cal position of Bulgaria, with three hundred miles of Dan- 
ube river-front lying across the path of the natural rail 
route to Constantinople, is too strong a factor in the 
struggle for mastery in the Near East to keep Bulgaria 
down. The treaty of Neuilly presupposes a state of mind 
^^ in the Balkans and in Europe that does not exist and that 
/'• can not exist so long as European diplomacy believes that 
the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. As 
Premier Venizelos of Greece clearly saw in 1913 and again 
in 1915, and as King Carol of Eumania and his premier, 
M. Marghiloman, also believed in 1913, too great a shift in 
the balance of power in the Balkans would bring about new 
combinations leading again inevitably to war. A durable 
peace for the Balkans and for Europe is possible only 
if irredentism can be diminished as a source of friction, 
and if none of the great powers is longer able to use a 
vengeful and dissatisfied Balkan state to advance its own 
political interests. 

Serbia got into difficulties with Austria in 1914 because 
of public sentiment demanding the liberation of large 
bodies of Serbian-speaking peoples under foreign domina- 
tion in adjacent territory, and because she had no outlet to 
the Mediterranean either through the Adriatic Sea or 
through the ^gean Sea. The absence of an outlet gave 
Austria-Hungary the opportunity to keep the lesser king- 

* See pp. 261-264, 297-298. 



Y 



THE TREATY OF NEUILLY (1919-1922) 425 

dom in economic dependence, and deepened the bitterness 
aroused by the irredentist propaganda of the Narodny 
Obrana.^ Russia took advantage of the state of mind of 
Serbia to work against Austria-Hungary and to aspire to 
the hegemony of the Balkans. In ^'ihe war to end war" the 
goal should have been to do away with the conditions that 
brought on the war. But the treaty of Neuilly put Bul- 
garia in the position in which Serbia was placed before the 
war. Deprived of her outlet to the Mediterranean and 
thwarted in her ambition to complete her unification, Bul- 
garia remains a valuable pawn to be used by Rumania 
against Serbia, by Italy against Serbia, by Serbia or Ru- 
mania against Greece, and by Russia against Great Britain 
or France, in coalition with Turkey or independently. 

The treaty of Neuilly, like the other treaties, illustrates 
the triumph of considerations of world politics over con- Y 
structive statesmanship. In Entente circles there was a 
strong current of expert opinion favorable to Bulgaria's 
double plea that she be allowed to retain her port on the ^ 
^gean Sea and her border districts. Neither friendship 
for Bulgaria nor a willingness to condone her participa- 
tion in the war on the side of the central empires and Tur- ' 
key inspired this advocacy of equitable treatment. The 
so-called Bulgarophiles had in mind the liquidation, in so 
far as was possible, of the intolerable and dangerous con- 
dition that had made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe ; 
and the quarter in which causes of war had arisen almost 
perennially ever since the beginning of the decay of the 
Ottoman Empire. 

But the British did not care to offend the Greeks, through 
whose expansion they saw the opportunity of controlling y 
Constantinople. The French, on the other hand, supported 
the claims of Serbia and Rumania as an offset to Clemen- , 
ceau's attitude on the minorities question, because they 
desired to unite Poland and the other successor states of 

*See pp. 273-276. 



X 



K 



426 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the Hapsburg empire in a military alliance against Bol- 
shevist Russia and against Germany.^ The Italians 
wished to keep alive the bitterness between Serbians and 
v/ Greeks and Bulgarians in order that they might have a 
fertile field in which to work against pan-Serbianism and 
pan-Hellenism. 

Owing to her geographical position again, Bulgaria has 
not felt so acutely as Germany and Austria the continued 
military pressure of the Entente powers; and as she is a 
self-sufficing agricultural country with few industries, an 
economic boycott would not weigh heavily upon her. On 
the other hand, France and Italy have begun to realize 
that the friendship of Bulgaria is a diplomatic asset in 
their dealings with the Little Entente (Rumania, Jugo- 
slavia, and Czecho-Slovakia) and in their relations with 
Greece. 

In the treaties of St. Germain and Trianon the cessions 
of territory, with the exception of those to Italy, were in 
each instance made subject to agreements between the prin- 
cipal allied and associated powers and the successor state 
as to the fulfilment of certain promises : protection of 
minorities; economic and transit facilities; handing back 
of property belonging to Austrian and Hungarian na- 
tionals; and liability for portions of the old Austro-Hun- 
garian national debt. Jugo-Slavia and Greece are not 
y bound, in the treaty of Neuilly, to respect the property of 
Bulgarian nationals in ceded territories. The treaty, more- 

^Major-General F. J. Kernan, U. S. A., wrote to President Wilson on 
April 11 a secret report of his mission in Poland in which he said: "In 
central Europe the French uniform is everywhere in evidence, officers and 
men. There is a concerted, distinct effort being made by these agents to 
foster the military spirit in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and, I believe, in 
Rumania. The imperialistic idea has seized upon the French mind like a 
kind of madness, and the obvious effort is to create a chain of states, highly 
militarized, organized as far as possible under French guidance, and intended 
to be future allies of France. . . . The claim is that this chain of strong 
military states is essential to hold back the tide of Russian Bolshevism. I 
regard this as largely camouflage. Each of the three states named has 
aggressive designs on the surrounding territory, and each ia determined to 
get, by force if need be, as large an area as possible. ' ' 



THE TREATY OF NEUILLY (1919-1922) 427 

over, contains a special article (XL VIII) in which Bulgaria 
renounced in favor of the principal allied and associated 
powers her portion of Thrace, which was won in the first 
Balkan War and not taken from her by the treaty of Bu- 
kharest. In return, the powers undertook "to insure the 
economic outlets of Bulgaria to the JEgean Sea." This 
region was already occupied by the Greek armies, who 
extended their occupation to Adrianople and the rest of the 
province, which had remained Turkish. The status of 
Thrace has not been determined and no definite arrange- 
ment has been made with Greece concerning Bulgaria's 
''economic outlet." The settlement of these questions 
hinges upon the disposition of Constantinople. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

WOELD POLITICS AND THE TEEATY OF SEVEES (1920-1922) 

THE Paris conference adjourned at the end of Novem- 
ber, 1919, without having come to an agreement upon 
three vital questions : the terms of the treaty with Turkey ; 
the adoption of a common policy towards Russia; and an 
understanding as to the means to be employed to compel 
Germany to fulfil the terms of the treaty of Versailles. 
The treaty of Versailles, however, had created interna- 
tional machinery for its enforcement. Furthermore, the 
covenant of the League of Nations, incorporated in the 
treaty, provided specifically for the settlement of the Turk- 
ish question, and generally for the liquidation of such a 
situation as that which existed between soviet Russia and 
the Entente powers. In January, 1920, when the final rati- 
fications of the treaty of Versailles were exchanged, the 
Supreme Council of the Entente powers could have been 
merged into the Council of the League ; and had this been 
done, the new organ for international cooperation would 
have been vested immediately with dignity and authority. 
If the creators of the League had believed in it and had 
been willing to trust their interests to it, the skeptics would 
have been convinced and the cynics confounded. Such a 
decision would have had an incalculable influence upon 
American pubhc opinion nine months before the American 
electorate was asked to choose between entering the League 
and staying out of it. The League was the potential deus ex 
machina. The neutrals, associated with the victors in a 
judicial and wise application of the treaties, would have 
aided in deciding upon a world policy towards Russia, and 

428 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 429 

in settling the future of the Ottoman dominions in con- 
formity with article XXII of the Versailles treaty. The 
moment was propitious for an honest effort to substitute 
international cooperation for national rivalry. 

But the premiers of Great Britain and France and Italy 
elected to hold secret continuation conferences, in which 
they endeavored to settle international problems, not in 
the interests of world peace, but in their own interests. 
Each had national aspirations to satisfy and a definite for- 
eign policy to follow.^ They saw in the League only an 
instrument to advance the selfish interests of the countries 
they represented. It would never do to let representatives 
of smaller states, as provided for by the treaty of Ver- 
sailles, sit in on their discussions and have the power to 
check or veto their bargains and compromises. 

The inheritance of the Ottoman Empire was a bone of 
contention and a cause for war throughout the nineteenth 
century. It played an important part in bringing on the 
World War, and was one of the chief considerations in 
secret diplomatic negotiations during the war. Owing to 
the defection of Russia, the calculations of the Entente 
powers had been upset. Because Russia had denounced 
the secret treaties, French, British, and Italian statesmen 
were slow to solve the Ottoman problem. Had czarist Rus- 
sia survived the war, she would have installed herself in 
Constantinople, and there would have been no question of 
an independent Armenia. On the other hand, the continued 
military cooperation of Russia would have made possible 
the unchallenged occupation of Asia Minor and Syria by 
Italy and France, and of Mesopotamia by Great Britain. 

* In writing of international relations one most often uses the names of 
nations where the government rather than the people is meant. Similarly, 
when we speak of premiers and cabinets, in matters of foreign policy, we 
do not distinguish between the personal active agent and the impersonal 
machinery in which he is simply a cog. If they want to keep their positions, 
European premiers must conform to the policies dictated to them by their 
ministries of foreign affairs. Their control over the conduct of foreign 
affairs is in the methods of attaining ends, and not in the ends. 



430 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Palestine would have been internationalized. But, with 
Eussia eliminated, Great Britain and France, Italy and 
Greece became rivals in the Ottoman Empire the moment 
the armistice was signed. A bitter conflict of interests 
arose. This, and this alone, prevented the conference of 
Paris and the continuation conference at London from 
settling the terms of the Turkish treaty. This, and this 
alone, was responsible for the renewal of Armenian mas- 
sacres, and for the rise of a powerful nationalist faction in 
Turkey, able to defy at once the simulacrum of government 
at Constantinople and the victorious powers.^ 

The Turkish question called for three main decisions : 
what territories to take away, how to force the Turks to 
give them up, and what to do with them. The premiers 
were no more ready to make these decisions in April, 1920, 
than they were the year before. Nevertheless, there always 
must be an end to a transitory period. The delay was 
affecting the prestige of the Entente powers and their har- 
monious relations. The time had come to cut all Gordian 
knots simultaneously. On May 11 the decisions of the 
Entente premiers, incorporated in a draft treaty, were 
communicated to the Turkish delegation in Paris. After 
a delay of three months the treaty w^as signed at Sevres on 
August 10, 1920. Between May and August a compromise 

* The American partizana of the League, who declared that our refusal to 
enter the League and to take a mandate for Armenia was responsible for the 
delay and confusion in deciding upon terms of peace with Turkey, showed 
a lack of knowledge of the fundamental factors in the Near Eastern diffi- 
culties. The unwillingness of the United States to accept an Armenian 
mandate was the result rather than the cause of the tangle, and the bitter 
clash of interests dismayed Americans who were closely watching political 
developments in the Near East and who desired to see the United States 
assume responsibilities there. The Armenian mandate was never offered us 
on practicable terms. When the San Eemo conference asked President 
Wilson to decide the frontiers of Armenia and offered the mandate to the 
United States, Cilicia, the outlet to the Mediterranean, was not included, 
and there is reason to believe that the offer was inspired by the hope of seeing 
the United States become involved in the profitless and costly task of occupy- 
ing the mountainous northeastern corner of Asia Minor and interposing a 
barrier between Eussian Bolshevism and the proposed British, French, and 
Italian spheres of influence. Soo my article on the San Eemo conference in 
the Century Magazine, July, 1920. 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 431 

had been arranged with Greece in regard to the Dodecan- 
nese, and the Greeks had occupied Thrace and had been 
successful in a campaign against the Turkish nationalists 
in northwestern Asia Minor. The authority of the old 
Ottoman government, therefore, extended hardly farther 
than the city of Constantinople, which was occupied by 
Entente forces. Asia Minor, under the leadership of Mus- 
tafa Kemal Pasha, was in open rebellion against the sul- 
tan. The delegates who signed the treaty of Sevres, which 
has never been recognized by the Anatolian Turks, repre- 
sented only Constantinople and its vicinity. 

The treaty of Sevres stipulated that Turkey should cede 
to Greece the islands of Tenedos and Imbros, Thrace almost 
up to the fortifications of Constantinople, and should agree 
to the autonomy of Smyrna with a generous hinterland. 
This latter area was to have an independent parliament, 
but was to be under Greek administration, and was to have 
the right to attach itself definitely to Greece by a plebi- 
scite after the lapse of five years. Greece received also the 
islands of the Dodecannese, except Rhodes, where a ple- 
biscite would be held by Italy to decide the destiny of the 
island if Great Britain agreed to cede Cyprus to Greece.^ 
Turkey recognized the independence of Syria, Armenia, 
the Hedjaz, and Mesopotamia; accepted the French pro- 
tectorate over Tunisia and Morocco, and the British pro- 
tectorate over Egypt and the Sudan; conceded British 
sovereignty over Cyprus; and ceded to Great Britain the 
rights secured to the Ottoman government by the Suez 
Canal treaty of 1888. Palestine was to be a Jewish na- 
tional home under the League of Nations, with Great 

^ Italy, however, was free to hold this plebiscite at any time within fifteen 
years after the cession of Cyprus to Greece. Premier Venizelos sacrificed 
Rhodes, in his compromise with Italy, in order to secure the abandonment of 
Italian opposition to the Greek occupation of Smyrna. The population of 
Rhodes is overwhelmingly and fanatically Greek, and the treaty of SSvres 
therefore created a new Cretan question in the ^gean Sea. The original draft 
of the treaty provided that Turkey cede the Dodecannese to Italy, but this waa 
modified in favor of Greece before the treaty was signed. _ 



432 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Britain as the mandatory power. The coasts of the Darda- 
nelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus were to be 
regarded as the ''zone of the Straits," under the control of 
a commission appointed by the League of Nations, but con- 
sisting of British, French, Italian, Japanese, Rumanian, 
and Greek members. In the final draft of the treaty a 
Turkish member was added to the Straits Commission. 

Before the treaty of Sevres w^as signed it had already 
been discredited by its principal authors. The premiers in 
the three-cornered struggle at San Remo, each antagonist 
pitted against the other two for the triumph of national 
interests, had been influenced in their decisions by the ques- 
tions of recognizing the new Russian government and ex- 
acting reparations from Germany, and by their manifest 
inability to resort to arms to suppress Mustafa Kemal 
Pasha, who had set up an opposition Turkish government 
at Angora. This accounts for their generosity to Greece 
and their ability to arrive at what they believed to be an 
equitable compromise of their own conflicting interests in 
the Near East. Great Britain wanted to trade with soviet 
Russia and call off the propaganda of Lenin in Islamic 
countries. Italy wanted food-stuffs from Russia. France, 
on the other hand, was primarily interested in securing 
British and Italian support in demanding the fulfilment by 
Germany of the disarmament and reparations clauses of 
the treaty of Versailles. In their anxiety to finish with 
the Turkish question and preserve harmony in dealing w^ith 
the Germans and Russians, the three premiers agreed not 
to expel the Turks from Constantinople, and to intrust 
Greece with the task of pacifying Thrace and the Smyrna 
region. Armenia was left in the lap of the gods. France 
and Great Britain were already in military possession of 
the Arabic-speaking portions of the empire. 

Forgetting, or ignoring, the considerations of European 
policy that led to the compromise of San Remo, and deem- 
ing insufficient the share of the booty assured by the secret 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 433 

agreement entered into on the day the draft treaty was 
handed to the Turks, French and Italian pubhc opinion 
made short shrift of the treaty of Sevres. Premier Mille- 
rand was accused of sacrificing realities to Great Britain in 
the Near East in exchange for a dubious promise of sup- 
port against Germany. Signor Nitti anticipated his critics 
by declaring that the treaty of Sevres was all wrong and 
had no value, because it was signed by representatives of a 
government that was not in control of the territories ceded, 
and because the Entente powers were unable, or unwilling, 
to apply force against the nationalist Turks, who refused 
to be bound by the treaty. Signor Nitti added that Italy 
could not be counted upon to help the Greeks to occupy and 
maintain themselves in the territories awarded them by the 
treaty. Both French and Italian public opinion believed 
that the British stood behind the Greeks, and that any ter- 
ritories governed by Greece in Asia Minor would be vir- 
tually under British protection. The French and the 
Italians also accused Great Britain of wanting to control 
Constantinople by the indirect method of having it fall to 
the Greeks. 

With the exception of the islands, the regions given to 
Greece by the treaty of Sevres were not in the possession 
of the powers that dictated the treaty. A fortnight before 
the treaty was signed, the Greeks, acting as mandatories 
for their allies, had invaded eastern Thrace and had occu- 
pied militarily what Turkey was asked to cede to them. 
More than a year earlier, on May 6, 1919, when Venizelos 
was representing Greece at the Paris conference, Wilson, 
Lloyd George, and Clemenceau had requested him to seize 
Smyrna, appointing Greece the agent of the victorious 
powers. The Turks Vv^ould not have had to sign the treaty 
of Sevres had not the Greek armies, advancing from 
Smyrna at the end of July, 1920, defeated the nationalist 
Turks, occupied Brusa, and interrupted the communica- 
tions between Constantinople and Angora. In respect to 



434 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Thrace and the Smyrna region the treaty of Sevres did no 
more than recognize a fait accompli, which had been 
brought about by the sole effort of the Greek armies. 

In November, 1920, following the death of King Alex- 
ander, who had been put on the throne of Greece by the 
Entente powers in 1917, Venizelos was defeated in a gen- 
eral election on an issue he himself had placed before the 
people — their choice between him and former King Con- 
stantino. Venizelos had to leave Greece, and Constantine 
returned to his throne. This event was hailed with great 
satisfaction in Eome, for the Italians had been greatly 
embarrassed by the diplomatic influence of Greece in 
Entente councils through the personaUty of Venizelos and 
the obligation of the Entente to reward Greece because of 
the services of Venizelos. In France the return of King 
Constantine was considered an insult to the dignity and 
authority of the Entente and a sign of reviving German 
influence. The French government seized upon it as a 
pretext for revising the treaty of Sevres.^ What Greece 
had received, said the French, was given to her because 
Venizelos was the friend of the Entente and could be relied 
upon to advance Entente interests. This thesis, elaborated 
in the Chamber of Deputies and in the press, revealed the 
motives behind the treaties, and was in variance with the 
reply of the Entente powers to President Wilson during 
the war as to the objects they had in mind.- Was the pur- 
pose of the treaty of Sevres to free the Greeks only if the 
country to which they were joined managed its affairs in 
such a way as tp safeguard and foster the political interests 

^ Eeasons for divergent policies in relation to Greece and Turkey are given 
on p. 455. 

^ On December 18, 1916, President Wilson had asked the two groups of 
belligerents to define their war aims. On January 10, 1917, the Allied gov- 
ernments sent a joint reply, dated from Paris, which gave as one of the 
specific objects of the war freeing the alien populations under Turkish rule 
and ending forever the rule of the Turks in Europe. Nothing was ever 
said during the war about emancipatiou from the Turks being contingent 
upon political services rendered after the war by Greece to advance the par- 
ticular interests of the Entente powers in the Near East. 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 435 

of the Entente powers'? Moreover, the French argument 
assumed that Greece held Thrace and Smyrna as a gift 
from the Entente powers, and also set the dangerous prece- 
dent that a treaty was subject to revision if subsequent 
interests of any of its signatories would be advanced by 
its revision. 

It was the military impotence of the Entente powers in 
the Near East that gave the Greeks the opportunity to 
occupy eastern Thrace and to install themselves as agents 
of the Entente at Smyrna. The return of Constantine was 
an indication that the Greeks discounted the displeasure of 
the Entente powers and knew that they could not look to 
western Europe for aid in their war against the Angora* 
government. Entente prestige suffered greatly in the Bal- 
kans and in Turkey as a result of the successfully defiant 
attitude of Greece. It was soon realized that Great Britain, 
Italy, and France had disagreed about the advisability of 
continuing to support the Greeks and were going to take no 
steps to enforce the provisions of the treaty of Sevres.^ 
Mustafa Kemal Pasha managed to keep the Greeks at bay 
during 1921, and gradually won the support of all the 
Turks. Even Constantinople, under the guns of the Allied 
war-ships, became Kemalist. The Turkish nationalists re- 
newed the massacres and deportation of Greeks and Ar- 
menians with the same impunity as during the World War ; 
they entered into diplomatic relations with the soviet gov- 
ernment of Russia; they refused to ratify an agreement 
with the Italians until its terms suited them; and they 
attacked the French in Cilicia. 

Realizing that they could not hold Cilicia against the 
Turks and that they were threatened with the loss of Syria, 
the French government sent a delegation to Angora in 
March, offering to withdraw the French armies from Cilicia 
in exchange for immunity in Syria. For several months 
negotiations were carried on, and finally, on October 30, 

»See pp. 455-456, 484. 



436 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

1921, the French government announced that it had ratified 
an agreement made at Angora with the Turkish nationalist 
government, declaring peace between the two governments 
and providing for economic cooperation. The new treaty 
gave back to Turkey not only Cilicia, but also a consider- 
able slice of northern Syria. The new frontier, running 
from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Tigris Eiver, recog- 
nized as Turkish territory important regions, including the 
districts of Aintab and Urfa. A special regime was pro- 
vided for the port of Alexandretta. Concessions for ninety- 
nine years were given to a French group for iron-, chrome-, 
and silver-mines in the valley of Harchite, and the Turkish 
government expressed its readiness ''to examine with the 
greatest good-will other requests which may be made by 
French groups relative to concessions in mines, railways, 
ports, and rivers, on condition that such requests conform 
to the interests of both France and Turkey." A portion 
of the Bagdad Railway, with a branch line from Adana to 
Mersina, was leased ''to the French group designated by 
the French government. ' ' 

The treaty of Angora illustrates how considerations of 
world politics prevail over signed treaties, loyalty to allies, 
and obligations to weaker peoples. In order to keep Syria 
and to get a fresh hold upon the economic development of 
Asia Minor, the French government did not hesitate to 
repudiate its signature to the treaty of Sevres, the clear 
implications of article XXII of the treaty of Versailles, and 
Entente obligations towards the Armenians and the Arabs. 
France went into Cilicia ostensibly to protect the Arme- 
nians. When she found that she could not stay there, she 
withdrew without assuring the lives and property of those 
on whose friendship she had relied to make possible her 
initial occupation of the province. Handing the districts of 
northern Syria back to the Turks, without consulting the 
other signatories of the treaty of Sevres and the members 
of the League of Nations, constituted a violation of the 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 437 

treaty of Sevres and of the League covenant. In addition, 
the French government knew that these regions of northern 
Syria had been recognized as Arab in the Anglo-Hedjaz 
agreement of 1915, and that their permanent alienation 
from Turkey was one of the bases upon which rested the 
Sykes-Picot agreement made between Great Britain and 
France in 1916.^ 

In the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire 
a special regime, with Great Britain as mandatory, was pro- 
vided for Palestine alone by the treaty of Sevres. The 
Hedjaz, Mesopotamia, and Syria were to be independent. 
The manner in which this independence was to be safe- 
guarded was provided for in article XXII of the covenant 
of the League of Nations, which formed, as in the other 
treaties, the first section of the treaty of Sevres. The 
language of article XXII does not seem capable of misin- 
terpretation. It reads: 

"Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish 
empire have reached a stage of development where their 
existence as independent nations can be provisionally rec- 
ognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice 
and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are 
able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must 
be a principal consideration in the selection of the Man- 
datory. ' ' 

The article further provides that the mandatory's 
authority ''shall, if not previously agreed upon by the 
members of the League, be exphcitly defined in each case 
by the Council"; that the mandatory shall render to the 
Council an annual report; and that a permanent commis- 
sion ''shall be constituted to receive and examine the an- 
nual reports of the Mandatories and to advise the Council 
on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates. ' ' 

Had the mandate idea been put into practice, it would 
have been a departure in world policies. Bearing the white 

^ See p. 378. 



438 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

man's burden had long been the hypocritical cloak for im- 
perialism, but it was reasonable to suppose that a begin- 
ning could be made in substituting the big brother for the 
big stick. But the Entente statesmen had agreed to the 
mandate proposal at Paris as a subterfuge for evading 
their war promises to the subject peoples of the Ottoman 
Empire and as a means of annexing the German colonies 
without accounting for this booty in the indemnity reckon- 
ing with Germany.^ In the Near East, as well as in China, 
the Pacific, and Africa, the Entente powers were bound 
to one another to divide the spoils of war in accordance 
with the terms of secret treaties. Their premiers con- 
fronted President Wilson at Paris with the argument that 
the war had been fought to assure the inviolability of inter- 
national engagements, and that the necessity of fulfilling 
these transcended the "fourteen points." It was asserted, 
also, that the secret treaties were none the less sacred be- 
cause of later international engagements, such as the pre- 
armistice agreement with Germany, the promises to sub- 
ject races, and even the texts of the treaties concluded at 
Paris. 

Eussia and Italy were not interested in the Arabic- 
speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire, and the division 
of these regions was a matter that concerned only Great 
Britain and France. Knowing the danger of allowing mis- 
understandings to arise, the British Foreign Ofl&ce and the 
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1916 arranged their 
future spheres of influence in Asiatic Turkey by the Sykes- 
Picot agreement. The complete collapse of the Ottoman 
Empire, and the spheres of influence of Russia and Italy 
in other parts of the empire, were presupposed. Therefore 
the line between the French and British spheres was drawn 
on the calculation that France would have the southeastern 
part of Asia Minor. The French were persuaded to agree 

^Former Secretary Lansing is of this opinion, and the WTiter's own sources 
of information confirm it. See Lansing 'a ' ' The Peace Negotiations, ' ' p. 61. 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 439 

to the division of Syria, Palestine going to Great Britain. 
France was to have the rest of Syria and Great Britain 
Mesopotamia. British agents, however, had already prom- 
ised the shereef of Mecca that if he would rebel against the 
sultan. Great Britain would sponsor the formation of an 
Arabic empire, including all the Arabic- speaking parts of 
Turkey. The border districts to be regarded as Arab were 
specified. In 1917, when the aid of the Arabs was sorely 
needed in Mesopotamia and in Palestine, these promises 
were reiterated, despite their conflict with the Sykes-Picot 
agreement. 

When the armistice was declared, Great Britain found 
herself in the embarrassing position of having promised 
the same territories to different people. By the Sykes- 
Picot agreement, Syria, including Damascus, was to go to 
France, and by the Balfour declaration of November 2, 
1917, the British cabinet had promised to make Palestine 
^'a national home" for the Jews. British generals in 
Mesopotamia had also been prodigal in their promises of 
*' complete independence" to several Arab tribal rulers. 
On the other hand, they had just as definitely promised 
the Damascus region and Mesopotamia to the shereef of 
Mecca, whom they had made king of the Hedjaz; and be- 
fore the conquest of Palestine, which would have been 
impossible without his aid, they had told King Hussein that 
they would respect the holy places of Islam and would 
allow complete political and religious liberty to the inhabit- 
ants of Palestine. This pledge could not be observed with- 
out repudiating the interpretation that the Zionist leaders 
had been allowed to make of the Balfour declaration. 

Emir Feisal, son of King Hussein, represented the Hed- 
jaz, recognized as an independent state, at the Paris con- 
ference; and the Hedjaz was a signatory of the treaty of 
Versailles. Its name appeared among the contracting 
powers in the treaty of Sevres, and the Hedjaz was a 
charter member of the League of Nations. But, before the 



440 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

signature of the treaty of Sevres, Feisal, who had installed 
himself in Damascus in accordance with the British under- 
standing, was driven out by the French, whose action was 
prompt and decisive. The quarrel was not referred to the 
League of Nations as provided for by treaties to which 
France and the Hedjaz were co-signatories. The British, 
failing to extend their administrative control over Mesopo- 
tamia by armed force, compensated Feisal, the enemy of 
France, by making him ruler of Bagdad under the title of 
king of the Irak, a region whose boundaries touched those 
of Syria, from which the French had driven Feisal. French 
public opinion believes that the 'disloyalty" of the British 
in Syria freed them from the obligation of conferring with 
the British before signing the treaty of Angora. 

In the parts of the former Ottoman Empire that they 
occupy Great Britain and France have ignored the man- 
date principle. They have not consulted the wishes of the 
inhabitants, and from the beginning they have never con- 
sidered that they derived their authority from the League 
of Nations. Their occupation of the supposed mandated 
territories, which are ''provisionally recognized as inde- 
pendent nations," is a military occupation, maintained by 
constant fighting and political repression. They can not 
report to a commission of the League progress in the "ren- 
dering of administrative advice and assistance," because 
they have no intention of merely helping, "until such a time 
as they are able to stand alone," the people over whom 
they are ruling. 

The recognition of the independence of the Hedjaz and 
the creation of the kingdom of Irak have made the position 
of the British on the other side of the Ked Sea precarious, 
if not untenable. The Egyptians refused to accept the 
British protectorate provided by the treaty of Sevres, 
claiming that the protectorate violated the treaty of Lon- 
don (1840) and was in contradiction to the assurances 
given by British statesmen to the Egyptians and the world 



THE TREATY OF SEVRES (1920-1922) 441 

from the time of the occupation down to and including the 
World War. The Palestinians are equally recalcitrant, 
and refuse to be sacrificed either to the exigencies of British 
world policy or to the fulfilment of the Balfour declaration. 
Farther north, the Syrians are making the French occupa- 
tion exceedingly costly. In Egypt, Palestine, and Syria 
the authority of the British and French extends in the 
spring of 1922 only as far as their guns carry. Not only 
are they having difficulty with the inhabitants of the coun- 
tries they seized, but their relations with each other have 
changed from the cordiality of comrades-in-arms to the 
suspiciousness and dislike of political rivals and commer- 
cial competitors. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE EEESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE PREVENTED BY UNSATIS- 
FIED NATIONALIST ASPIRATIONS AND DIVERGENT 
POLICIES OP THE VICTORS (1918-1922) 

AS far as enemy states were concerned, the armistices 
— ^with Bulgaria, September 28 ; with Turkey, October 
30 ; with Austria-Hungary, November 3 ; and with Germany, 
November 11 — ended the "World War. The drastic terms 
of the Allies were accepted without equivocation, and there 
was no opposition to any measures taken to put them into 
effect. Except in Turkey, the victors made the stipulations 
and took the precautionary measures necessary to prevent 
a renewal of hostilities on the part of the vanquished. 
During the years immediately following the World War, 
therefore, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria were 
powerless to disturb the peace. From a diplomatic as well 
as a military point of view, these four states counted for 
nothing in international relations. Their armies were dis- 
banded, their navies were destroyed, their fortresses were 
dismantled or were occupied by allied garrisons, their mili- 
tary equipment, from huge cannon and airplanes down to 
uniforms and shoes, passed into the hands of their enemies, 
their citizens were refused passports for travel, and their 
embassies and legations and consulates remained closed in 
almost every country of the world. 

As we have seen, the vanquished were excluded from a 
voice in the deliberations of the peace conference, and when 
their plenipotentiaries were summoned to Paris to sign 
treaties that represented the desires and ideas of their 
conquerors, they were shut up under guard and not allowed 
to communicate, much less exchange opinions, with the dele- 

442 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 443 

gates or the press correspondents of the victorious powers. 
This diplomatic exclusion continued for more than two 
years after the treaty of Versailles went into force. In the 
various political and economic conferences, and in the meet- 
ings of the League of Nations, former enemy states and 
Russia played no part.^ 

The failure to reestablish peace can not be imputed to an 
inconclusive victory that left the victors in no position to •/ 
impose their will upon the vanquished. Nor were recon- 
struction and rehabilitation throughout the world retarded 
through opportunities offered to the defeated powers (ex- V 
cept Turkey) to fish in troubled waters. They were unable 
to escape the consequences of their defeat by dividing the 
victors during the peace negotiations or by alienating small y 
states from the bloc of their enemies through direct con- 
cessions and bribes of economic advantages. The reestab- 
lishment of peace was prevented by unsatisfied nationalist 
aspirations of the small states and by divergent policies of 
the five principal allied and associated powers. 

An examination of the main features of the five treaties 
and of the problems to which they gave rise has shown that 
the recent World "War did not accomplish the change that / 
was hoped for in the character of international relations. 
In the policies they advocated, statesmen continued to have 
a national, not an international, vision. Their object was 
the aggrandizement of the nation they represented, their 
justification the security and prosperity of their own coun- 
try, and their criterion the force at their disposal. Before 
the conference opened, Premier Clemenceau summed up 
this conception of a statesman's duties when he explained 
to the Chamber of Deputies that he would go into the con- '^ 
f erence with a maximum and a minimum program, with the 
sole idea of getting for France as much as he could. From 

* The economic conference at Genoa, in April, 1922, was the first official 
international gathering since the war in which Germans and Eussians sat with 
the delegates of the other powers. See p. 559. 



444 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

January, 1919, to January, 1922, beginning at Paris and 
K^r continuing until Washington, the victors held conference 
/ after conference for the ostensible purpose of establishing 
a new world order. But, unfortunately, what they really 
had in mind were the interests of their own nations ; and, 
since the elimination of Germany and Russia gave them 
IX opportunities for the development of their world policies 
such as they had not enjoyed before, the principal alHed 
and associated powers gradually drifted from the soli- 
darity of comradeship-in-arms into conflict among them- 
selves over the spoils of the war. 

In considering the ''spoils of the war," we must guard 
against the mistake of placing too great emphasis upon ter- 
ritorial gains and indemnities. Under twentieth-century 
political and economic conditions, the extension of sover- 
eignty over new territories and the payment of indemnities 
are not indisputably advantageous to powers victorious in 
war. In fact, these traditional rewards to the victors are 
likely to prove positively harmful. The new territories 
may bring internal and international complications and 
military and financial burdens, and the indemnities may 
hurt commerce and retard industry. The greatest assets of 
victory are gains that tend directly to increase the security 
and prosperity of the victors. 

In almost every case, the cessions of territory and the 
\/ indemnities provided for in the terms dictated to the enemy 
were prompted by strategic and economic considerations. 
The framers of the treaties had two objects in mind: to 
}( render the vanquished powers militarily impotent, and to 
destroy them as trade competitors. Into the treaty with 
Turkey a third object entered: to divide as much of the 
p Ottoman dominions as possible into exclusive spheres of 
influence among Great Britain, France, and Italy. The 
emancipated peoples, therefore, although erected into in- 
dependent states, joined to neighboring states, or put under 
the tutelage of the different powers as mandated territo- 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 445 

ries, had a string attached to their liberty ; in return for the 
gift of emancipation, they were to fight for, trade with, and 
open up their countries to the mining and industrial enter- 
prises of the victorious powers. 

In making the treaties and in taking measures to enforce 
them, however, divergent opinions and policies arose among 
the framers of the treaties because they were to one an- 
other what the central empires had been — a potential men- 
ace and actual trade competitors. In the conferences that 
succeeded the common victory of the autumn of 1918 the 
surviving powers have been thinking of one another and 
have acted towards one another as they thought and acted 
towards Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Eussia in pre-war 
days. The destruction of the balance of power has made 
necessary a revision of the strategic and economic policies 
of each of the remaining great powers. Instead of har- 
mony and cooperation, there have been jealousy, suspicion, , 
and keen competition for the political and economic spoils 
of the war. The principal and allied associated powers 
have been unable to come to an equitable understanding .^ 
concerning each participant's share in the advantages ac- '' 
cruing from the victory. Divergent needs and ambitions 
have resulted in divergent policies. 

The European balance of power, as it existed in 1914, 
was the result of centuries of political evolution. Each 
great political organism had its essential place and served 
as a check upon the others. Because of Russia and France, 
Germany could not absorb the Hapsburg empire. Because 
of Russia, Germany feared to attack France. Austria- 
Hungary and Russia kept each other from penetrating the 
Balkan peninsula. France and Germany made possible the 
creation and independent existence of Belgium, and both 
of these powers vitally contributed to the unification of 
Italy. Italy profited for half a century by being able to 
hold the balance of power in Europe between Germany and 
France, and in the Mediterranean between France and 



446 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Great Britain. The increasing strength of Germany pre- 
vented Russia from attacking Austria-Hungary, just as 
the increasing strength of Russia prevented German}^ from 
keeping France intimidated. The remarkable growth and 
prosperity of Germany aided British commerce on the con- 
tinent, and acted as a deterrent when France was eager to 
fight Great Britain. It was a commonplace of European 
diplomacy that if Austria-Hungary had not existed, this 
political organism would have had to be created in order to 
preserve the peace of Europe. It will readily be seen that 
the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires 
and the military and economic prostration of Germany 
gave rise to new problems that inevitably led to disagree- 
ment among British, French, and Italians. Since the in- 
terests of these three peoples were conflicting in the matter 
of the reconstruction of Europe, the danger of divergent 
policies leading to misunderstandings soon became ap- 
parent. 

The disturbing effect of the permanent elimination of 
Austria-Hungary and the temporary exclusion of Germany 
and Russia from a share in shaping the destinies of Europe 
was not limited to European reconstruction. In various 
crises between 1878 and 1914 the European and world situ- 
ation of the great powers proved to be interdependent. 
Wars between European states and the subjugation of 
weak nations outside Europe w'ere frequently prevented by 
the distribution of the balance of power. No great power 
attempted to repeat Russia's effort to encroach upon the 
Ottoman Empire, for, after San Stefano,^ it was realized 
that the powers were ready to combine against a despoiler 
of Turkey. The World War reopened the Near Eastern 
question, and, with Germany and Russia out of the calcu- 
lations, Great Britain, France, and Italy inevitably became 
bitter rivals, not only for the Ottoman succession, but also 
for paramount influence in countries bordering on Turkey. 

"■ See p. 48. 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 447 

In the Far East, Eussia ceased to be a clieckmate to Japan. 
Grermany, too, no longer stood in Japan's way, and the 
Entente powers soon came to realize that their ally, Japan, 
was proving a far greater menace to their security and 
prosperity in the Far East than Germany ever could have 
been. The withdrawal of czarist Russia, with which British 
diplomats knew how to deal, left Persia and Afghanistan 
open to a propaganda against British influence that could 
not be checked. 

The unsatisfied nationalist aspirations of small nations 
and subject peoples made impossible a durable world peace ^ 
on the basis of the settlements arranged at Paris. These 
aspirations were not always legitimate or practicable, and 
frequently there was a conflict between the claims of the y 
various peoples aspiring to independence. Therefore all 
could not be satisfied, and recognition by the principal 
allied and associated powers of some of the nationalist 
aspirations to which they refused to listen would undoubt- X 
edly have resulted in as much injustice and political insta- 
bility as already existed because of the conditions against 
which weak states and subject nations protested. Com- 
promises and disappointments were inevitable. > 

But these compromises were not made upon the basis of 
adjusting as equitably as possible the rival claims of small 
states or of finding a modus vivendi for subject peoples 7 
that conformed to their own best interests and that would 
lead to the realization of reasonable and legitimate aspira- 
tions. In Europe, and outside Europe, nationalist aspira- 
tions were used by the statesmen of victorious powers to 
advance their own interests, frequently by wringing con- -/ 
cessions from, or attempting to block the aims of, former 
comrades-in-arms. A paradox or a vicious circle has been 
established: because of the divergent policies of the prin- 
cipal allied powers the aspirations of small states and sub- / 
ject peoples were not realized at the Paris conference, and 
because these aspirations were not satisfied within reason- 



448 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

able and practicable limits, the policies of the principal 
allied powers, since the peace conference, have become 
more divergent. 

Concrete illustrations can be given to demonstrate that 
the statesmen of Great Britain, France, and Italy have 
quarreled because of world politics since the war in the 
same way as during crises before the war, and that the 
recent cooperation during a long and costly struggle has 
not created bonds of friendship among the peoples of the 
allied nations strong enough to prevail against the bitter- 
ness and selfishness and fear accruing from the concep- 
tions and pursuit of world politics. 

Always keeping in mind the two preoccupations of for- 
eign policy, security and prosperity, we find that the war 
gave Great Britain and Italy satisfaction, in so far as the 
enemy states were concerned, on the score of security. 
Great Britain achieved the destruction of the German navy 
and the virtual banishment from the high seas of the Ger- 
man merchant marine; Italy achieved the destruction of 
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. France, on the other hand, 
still faced a Germany numerically stronger than herself and 
better equipped industrially to manufacture the widely 
varied implements of war, which now included airplanes 
and poison gases, both indistinguishable in time of peace as 
military weapons. 

Under these circumstances, France felt that her national 
security depended upon the permanent political and eco- 
nomic disability, in the family of nations, of her great foe. 
The policy of France was to alienate as much territory as 
possible from Germany, either by taking it herself or giv- 
ing it to others; to prevent the voice of Germany from 
being heard in the League of Nations or any other inter- 
national conference; and either to break up the unity of 
the German Empire or to put the German people into 
economic servitude. The means of accomplishing these 
purposes were: (1) permanent retention of the territories 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 449 

occupied under the terms of the treaty of Versailles; (2) 
keeping Austria from joining Germany; (3) including 
within the frontiers of Poland as much German territory 
as possible, notably the great industrial region of upper 
Silesia; (4) creating as extensive a Poland as possible, 
which, in return for French support, would agree to main- 
tain a large standing army to replace Russia as France's 
ally; and (5) making and interpreting and enforcing the 
reparations terms of the treaty with the view of frustrat- 
ing whatever attempts Germany might make for political 
and economic rehabilitation. 

In getting much of what they wanted into the treaty of 
Versailles, the French had been aided by the foolish elec- 
toral promise "to make Germany pay" of Mr. Lloyd 
George, in December, 1918, and by the need of Great Brit- 
ain and Italy to call upon France frequently against the 
United States or, more correctly, against President Wilson. 
The French did not win the left bank of the Ehine and a 
clear title for themselves to the Saar Basin, nor did they 
get for Poland Danzig, certain large districts of east and 
west Prussia and upper Silesia. But they did secure the 
right to continue the occupation of the Ehine provinces, to 
control the internal policies of the German government, 
and to exclude Germany from international conferences 
until the terms of the treaty of Versailles were fulfilled.^ 
This, of course, meant the Greek kalends unless there were 
a revision, or at least a series of modifications, when it 
was discovered that Germany could not literally fulfil all 
the clauses of the treaty, such as trial of war criminals, 
disbanding of gendarmerie, and the payment of reparation 
sums demanded. 

Since the signing of the treaty of Versailles, France, on 
the ground of security, has stood for its strict fulfilment, 
even when it was acknowledged that the terms could not be 
fulfilled. In the latter case, France has announced her 

*See Chapter XLVI. 



y 



450 AN INTRODUCTION TO "WORLD POLITICS 

intention to proceed to exercise the sanctions provided for 
in case of non-fulfilment : retention of the left bank Ehine 
provinces; occupation of additional German territory, 
notably the Euhr Basin, which contains most of Germany's 
remaining coal and her greatest industries ; and seizure of 
the customs of German ports and frontier cities, in this 
way reducing Germany to the position of China and 
Turkey. 

But what the French deem necessary for their security 
y the British and Italians realize is disastrous to their pros- 
perity. The treaty of Versailles is not drastic enough for 
the French : it is too drastic for the British and Italians.* 
For this reason the French have encouraged and the British 
and Italians have discouraged a separatist movement in 
the Ehine provinces and the imperialism of the Poles. Mr. 
Lloyd George, during the conference, opposed the incor- 
poration in Poland of German districts and the mad desire 
of the Poles to extend their frontiers to the northeast, the 
east, and the southeast, at the expense of Lithuanians 
Eussians, and Ukrainians. He was consistent in this oppo 
sition during the crises that followed the creation of Poland 
and throughout the development of the upper Silesian 
question. 

The British premier had the support of the Italians. 
British and Italian statesmen and public opinion realized 
that normal business conditions and commercial prosperity 
could be reestablished only through the economic rehabili- 

^ The widely circulated book by J. M. Keynes, ' ' The Economic Consequences 
of the Peace," which appeared in 1920, was roundly condemned by able 
American scholars who had been experts attached to the American Commission 
to Negotiate Peace. Events have proved^ however, that Mr. Keynes, who had 
been the representative of the British treasury at the Paris conference, really 
set forth the prevailing governmental view of the treaty of Versailles. Simi- 
larly, in the autumn of 1921, former Premier Nitti of Italy published a book, 
"L'Europa senza Pace," denouncing, as Mr. Keynes had done, the terms 
of the treaty of Versailles as unjust and impractic.-ilde, and pointing out 
their blighting effect on the restoration of peace and prosperity in Europe. 
Mr. Keynes has just published a second volume in which he confesses that 
his earlier pessimism has not been fully justified, but he reiterates the 
need for revision. 



^ 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 451 

tation 0:1 central Europe. In the long run the payment of 
reparations, either in goods supplied directly to them or 
in money derived from the sale of goods in extra-European 
markets, would hurt them far more than the amounts they ^ 
received from the reparations. Therefore they gradually 
withdrew their support from France, condemning her atti- y 
tude towards Germany and her encouragement of Poland. 
When the upper Silesian question was finally settled on 
the basis of division of the disputed territory, in which 
Poland was favored, the British and Italian press did not 
attempt to conceal the dissatisfaction and misgivingsy 
aroused by persistence in the policy that could be explained 
by no other motive than that of rendering Germany impo- 
tent to meet the reparation payments. 

In the political and economic conferences, often confined 
to the premiers of the three powers, which followed in 
rapid succession the initial attempts to enforce the treaty 
of Versailles and to interpret and complete the other ^^ 
treaties, the French and British bargained with each other, 
France gaining the assent of Great Britain to the policy 
of threatening Germany in exchange for granting the 
British a freer hand in the Near East. After Italy had 
adjusted her Adriatic difficulties with the Jugo-Slavs, this 
method of compromise did not appeal to her ; she had noth- - 
ing to bargain about ! But between the conference of San 
Eemo in the spring of 1920 and that of Cannes in the early 
days of 1922 the internal situation in Great Britain had 
made her statesmen less keen about scoring diplomatic 
advantages outside Europe and much more insistent upon y 
relieving the intolerable situation of central Europe and 
avoiding the competition of German goods by loosening the 
screws applied to the German government. Unemploy- -.^ 
ment was a great problem in England. Trade relations had 
to be resumed with central and eastern Europe, and British - 
merchants could no longer, for the sake of France, envisage 
with equanimity any policy that would result in the floods 



452 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

ing of the markets of the world with cheap German goods. 
The same feeling prevailed in Italy. After all, Great 

X Britain and Italy had much less interest in the indemnities 
from Germany than had France. 

When France found that she could no longer count upon? 
British and Italian cooperation in, or even diplomatic ap- 

v proval of, her plans to seize the Ruhr Basin and the custom- 
houses of Germany following the refusal or inabiUty of 
Berhn to meet the stipulated indemnity payments, Presi- 
dent Millerand invited former President Poincare to form 
an avowedly nationalist cabinet to replace the ministry of 
M. Briand, who had been temporizing with Great Britain 
at Washington and Cannes.^ But the French ministry of 
foreign affairs had broken loose from the entente cordiale 

Y months before, and had opened a definite breach in the 
seemingly harmonious diplomatic front of the Entente 
powers by negotiating a separate peace with the Kemalist 
Turkish government at Angora. This agreement abro- 

w gated, as far as France was concerned, fundamental terms 
of the treaty of Sevres and the mandate clauses of the 
covenant of the League of Nations. Up to this time France 
had not accepted the mandate principle, either in letter or 
spirit; but the Angora treaty was the first instance of a 

r- denial of the common partnership of the principal allied 
and associated powers in extra-European territories ceded 
to them collectively by Germany and Turkey. 

The Paris treaties left unsatisfied throughout the world 
the nationalist aspirations of friends as well as of foes. 
Of the succession states of Austria-Hungary, Italy fared 

^ In the second Aveek of January, 1922, M. Briand, called back to Paris 
from the Cannes conference by a political crisis, defended energetically and 
with seeming success his policies before the Chamber of Deputies. Although 
ho might have obtained a vote of confidence, he resigned because President 
Millerand told him that the country did not approve of his concessions to 
the British. Commenting on tlie resignation of M. Briand, M. Yiviani said 
that it Avas impossible for a statesman to attempt to manage French foreign 
affairs on the basis of what was practicable, in view of the radical difference 
of opinion with Great Britain on the question of how Germany should be 
treated. 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 453 

best. But even she had to compromise with the Jugo-Slavs. 
The treaty of Eapallo, ratified by Italy on November 27, 
1920, although it gave Italy most of what she had claimed, 
satisfied the Italian nationalists scarcely more than it did 
the Jugo-Slavs. Czecho-Slovakia contained large alien 
elements, separated arbitrarily from their German, Aus- 
trian, and Hungarian kin in neighboring countries. Ru- 
mania and Serbia differed on the division of the banat of 
Temesvar. Poland secured, partly by French backing and 
partly by force of arms in defiance of the Entente powers 
and the League of Nations, large portions of Lithuanian, 
Russian, and Ukrainian territory. From Bulgaria were 
taken regions inhabited entirely by people of their own V 
tongue, who claimed to be Bulgarians. In violation of the 
explicit terms of article XXII of the treaty of Versailles, 
the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire, with 
the exception of the Hedjaz, were divided between Great 
Britain and France. The treaty of Versailles compelled 
Germany to recognize the British protectorate over Egypt 
and the transfer of German rights in Shantung to Japan, 
although Egyptians and Chinese were not consulted and 
obdurately refused to submit to this disregard of their 
sovereign rights. Persia was denied a hearing at the peace 
conference, but in August, 1919, was compelled by the 
British to sign a treaty virtually establishing a protecto- 
rate, which was afterwards repudiated when the British ^ 
government found that it could no longer keep troops in 
Persia. 

At the peace conference and afterwards the aspirations 
of the Arabs, Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Persians, 
and Chinese, although they had been encouraged during 
the war, as set forth by the Allies in their joint response to 
bribes in the deliberations of the principal allied and asso- 
ciated powers. In a manner more disguised, but not less 
effective and for the same purposes, the peoples of the 
Hapsburg and Romanoff empires, and also the Albanians 



X 



454 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and Greeks, were favored or militated against according 
to the exigencies of the world policies of the world powers. 

That their own interests and not the merits of the case 
shaped the decisions of the principal allied and associated 
powers is most clearly shown in the shifting attitude of 
Great Britain and France towards the Armenians, Greeks, 
and Turks since the conclusion of the war. 

Because of their unexampled sufferings, the Entente 
powers promised to avenge the Armenians and protect 
them, even if they were unable to assure them indepen- 
dence, in case of victory. This was one of the objects of 
the war by definite promises, were used as threats and 
President Wilson's disconcerting inquiry at the end of 
1916. The Armenians were encouraged to enlist in the 
Entente armies, and were formed into separate battalions 
by Eussians, French, and British. Like the Arabs, they 
fought against their oppressors, and after the armistice 
/. with Turkey they were used by the French in Cilicia and 
by the British in the Caucasus to help pacify and police 
occupied territories. But when changed conditions else- 
where suggested a modification of the original plans of the 
victors, the Armenians were deserted by both the British 
and the French, and in the treaty of Angora the French 
handed Cilicia back to Turkey, with no adequate stipula- 
tions for the protection of the Armenians. The remnant 
of the race out of whose sufferings so much political capital 
had been made during the war to arouse hatred of the Ger- 
mans and the Turks was without compunction left once 
more in the power of the Turks. 

The Greeks were forced into the war, after their first 
offer of aid had been rejected, because of the military neces- 
sities of the Entente powers.^ After the armistices the 
presence of the Greek armies in Macedonia and Thrace, and 
their occupation of Smyrna at the invitation of the Entente 
powers during the peace conference, made possible the 

» See pp. 300-301. 



V 



PEACE PREVENTED BY VICTORS (1918-1922) 455 

acceptance of the authority of the victors by the Bulgarians 
and the Turks. "Without the Greek forces to call upon, the 
Entente powers would hardly have dared to settle in Con- 
stantinople and undertake to disarm Bulgaria,^ and they 
could not have expelled the Turks from Thrace. They 
relied upon the Greeks to furnish the bulk of the forces 
used to attempt to intimidate the Turkish nationalists, who 
disregarded the terms of the armistice. The Greeks kept 
the nationalists occupied while the French were getting 
their hold on Syria and while the British were trying to 
bring Mesopotamia and the Caucasus under their adminis- 
trative control. The French became suspicious of the 
Greeks, however, and, although they themselves had signed 
the treaty of Sevres, they encouraged the Turks to resist 
the Greeks. The Italians went farther and furnished the 
Turks with arms and ammunition. 

Italy was determined to prevent the rise of a powerful 
rival in the eastern Mediterranean. The ground for French 
suspicions was the British support of the Greeks. They 
feared that Greek penetration in Asia Minor would lead to 
the occupation of Constantinople, which the Greeks would 
hold for the British. The French attitude towards Greece 
in 1920 was similar to the British attitude towards Bulgaria 
in 1878. When Venizelos was defeated at the polls and 
King Constantine returned to the throne, in November, 
1920, the French seized this event as a pretext for open 
diplomatic hostility to the efforts of Greece to protect Hel- 
lenism in Asia Minor. When the British realized that the 
Greeks could not defeat the Kemalist Turks, they cut off 
their subsidies and declared that Constantinople and the 
Straits should be neutral in the war between the Turkish 
nationalists and the Greeks. Six months later the British 
learned that the French were dickering with Kemal Pasha 

*It must be remembered that the Eumanian army, scarcely recovered 
from its demoralization, had to face the Bolshevist menace in Bessarabia, 
and that the Serbians, still more depleted in men and material, were strain- 
ing every nerve to oppose a solid front against the Italians. 



y 



•i 



456 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

at Angora. When the Franco-Kemalist treaty was signed, 
V the British denounced French bad faith and began to sup- 
port the Greeks again. 

Following close upon a war of heroic sacrifice and ideal- 
ism, these facts are disagreeable to record. But it is not 
enough to realize that peace did not come as a result of the 
treaties, and to connect the unsettled condition of the world 
with the agitation of dissatisfied small nations and subject 
peoples. The Turks have a proverb that *'a fish begins to 
corrupt at the head. " If the principal allied and associated 
powers had trusted one another, and had been willing to 
cooperate for the common good, they could have imposed 
upon the world the reality of peace as easily as they im- 
posed upon Germany a signature on the dotted line. 
United, none could have withstood them ; divided, they have 
undermined one another's authority and have kept the 
world in a disturbed economic and a dangerous political 
state because they have tried to push one another aside in 
the mad rush for the fruits of victory. 



CHAPTER XLI 

THE ETJSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 

(1917-1922) 

ON March 12, 1917, Czar Nicholas suspended the Duma. 
The Lower House disregarded the ukase. When or- 
dered to arrest its members, the Petrograd garrison muti- 
nied and went over to the revolutionists. Thereupon the 
Duma delegated to an executive committee the authority to 
set up a provisional government. The next day the prin- 
cipal reactionaries and most of the czarist ministers and 
high functionaries were imprisoned. On the 14th Moscow, 
Odessa, and other cities declared for the provisional gov- 
ernment. Czar Nicholas abdicated on the 15th. 

In Entente countries the Russian Revolution was inter- 
preted as a popular movement, sponsored by the moderate 
political leaders, to prevent German influence at the Rus- 
sian court from gaining the ascendancy to the extent of 
causing the disruption of the Entente Alliance. For months 
rumors of a separate peace had circulated in neutral coun- 
tries, and had caused great uneasiness at London, Paris, 
and Rome. Now it was predicted not only that Russia 
would go on with the war, but that the disappearance of 
czarism would mean a universal awakening of enthusiasm 
for the war against German absolutism. Color and hope 
were given to this belief by the declarations of the provi- 
sional government. New Russia, they said, was naturally 
interested in, while old Russia was indifferent to, the world- 
wide triumph of democracy. The speeches of President 
Wilson, published in full by the Russian newspapers, were 
regarded as the gospel of a new era in international re- 
lations. 

457 



458 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

The revolution had deeper roots and was more far-reach- 
ing in its influence than had at first been supposed. The 
Duma leaders who came forward to assume the responsi- 
bilities of government, however, seemed to be as blind as 
were the Entente diplomatic representatives to the fact that 
war weariness was the reason for the instantaneous accept- 
ance of the revolution by the armies and the ci^dlian popu- 

,^^ lation. The mass of the Russian people had no antipathy 

^'' to the Germans. They were ignorant of the imperialistic 

/ aspirations that the Russian government hoped to realize 
by the victory of the Entente. They would not have under- 
stood them if they had known. For nearly three years the 

, , Russians fought against their enemies without a conscious 

/^ national feeling either of self-defense or of self-aggrandize- 
ment. None of the complex of motives that inspired the 

/ British, French, and Italians had stirred and spurred and 
sustained them. Controlled and directed by the machinery 

Y of the old regime, they answered the call to arms, and 
fought well if well led, or badly if badly led. When the 

A czarist government collapsed, its machinery broke down. 
Revolutionary Russia was expected by the Entente states- 
y men to continue to function as czarist Russia had func- 
tioned. The first provisional government, composed of dif- 
ferent elements of widely varying political theories, was 

y unanimous in its decision to continue the war; but a split 
soon occurred over the question of the objects of the con- 
flict. Prince Lvoff and Foreign Minister Miliukoff were 

y aggressive and impenitent nationalists who, like the Young 
Turks, believed that absolutism could be destroyed by a 
popular movement, without renouncing the spirit and poli- 
cies of absolutism. This belief led them to assure the 

y Entente ambassadors that the understandings and the 
undertakings of the alliance would be preserved. They 
were willing to go on with the war on the old basis, i. e., 

Y- that each should contribute to the common cause and that 
each should receive an explicitly defined share of the 



RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 459 

booty.^ But other members of the cabinet, whose spokes- 
man was Kerensky, declared that the overthrow of the czar ^ 
meant a radical departure from the former policies of Rus- '^ 
sia. They were willing to urge the people to go on with 
the war, and approved the recognition of the independence / 
of Poland — a measure greatly to the advantage of the 
Entente. But the ideals of the revolution were the right 
of peoples to decide their own destinies and the renuncia- . 
tion of intrigues and bargains by which peoples were en- ' 
slaved. If Russia freed Poland, they argued, why should 
not Great Britain free Ireland? 

The clash between the two groups came over the question 
of Constantinople. Kerensky told representatives of the ^ 
French and British press that the revolutionary govern- 
ment had no interest in the old czarist policy of conquests, , 
which was contrary to the spirit of the revolution, and ^ 
therefore waived all the pledges and understandings of the 
secret treaties. He specified the acquisition of Constanti- 
nople as an aspiration that revolutionary Russia no longer / 
sponsored. Miliukoff replied that Constantinople was as 
much the dream of new Russia as of old Russia. This ^ 
brought to the front the question of the attitude of revolu- 
tionary Russia towards the international engagements of - 
the fallen regime. The socialists were strong enough to 
compel Prince Lvoff to issue a manifesto stating as the j 
policy of the government the principle of ''no annexation, 
no indemnities," which the newly formed Soviets of work- 

^ The liberal and radical elements in Russia had always resented the 
alliance with France. Thoy believed that France had loaned money to 
Russia neither for friendship's sake nor for investment, but solely to 
create a military and naval machine with which to menace Germany at no 
expense to themselves. Moreover, the exigencies of her foreign policy had 
rendered the government of democratic France unsympathetic — even hostile — 
to the liberal movement in Russia. The financial and political support of 
the French alliance had, in fact, enabled the absolutist regime to remain 
in control of the destinies of Russia. When the war broke out, Russia had 
been promised in secret treaties her share of the spoils, and had received the 
definite assurance from the other Entente powers that they would not interfere 
in the Polish question. In 1916, and again in the early part of 1917, 
France solicited Russia's support for France's claim to a Rhine boundary, 
and promised in return to aid Russia in suppressing Polish aspirations. 



%■ 



460 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

y men and soldiers were advocating. The government's 
' declaration of April 9 read: 

''The government deems it to be its right and duty to 
declare now that free Russia does not aim at dominating 
other nations, at depriving them of their national patri- 
mony, or at occupying by force foreign territories ; but that 
its object is to establish a durable peace on the basis of 
the rights of nations to decide their own destiny. The 
Russian nation does not lust after the strengthening of 
its power abroad at the expense of other nations. Its aim 
is not to subjugate or to humiliate any one." 

\j This reversal of policy gave more concern to Entente 
statesmen than did the loss of battles. It was a smashing 
blow to world-politics diplomacy. President Wilson's 
speeches were regarded as harmless babble, for the simple 
reason that the United States had no stake in the secret 
agreements made before and during the war. But dealing 
with Russia on the basis of quid pro quo had been the 

\/ directing principle of French and British foreign policy, 
and had made possible the formation of the Entente Alli- 
ance. Closing their eyes to the fact that the old political 
structure was too shattered to be repaired, and that the 

Y\ Russian people needed a new and radically different stimu- 
lus if their fighting spirit was to be resuscitated, the 
Entente governments insisted that Prince Lvoff and Miliu- 
koff continue to play the game in the old way. At the end 
, of April Miliukoff sent a note to the Allied powers, declar- 

X ing that new Russia was in complete agreement 'Svith the 
well kno^vQ war aims of the other Entente powers" and 
that ''the nation's determination to bring the "World War 
to a decisive victory" had been accentuated by the revolu- 
tion. The executive committee of the Council of Work- 
men's and Soldiers' Delegates ordered the government on 

y May 4 to send a new note to the Allied powers, contradict- 
ing that of Miliukoff, who was virtually dismissed as a 
result of this intervention of the Soviets. 



RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 461 

Prince LvoH formed a coalition government, in which 
Kerensky was shifted from the ministry of justice to that X 
of war and marine combined. The new ministry notified 
the powers that ^'in its foreign policy the provisional gov- 
ernment, rejecting, in concert with the entire people, all 
thought of a separate peace, adopts openly as its aim the w 
reestablishment ,pf a general peace, which shall not tend 
towards either domination over other nations, or the seizure 
of their national possessions, or the violent usurpation of 
their territories — a peace without annexation or indemni- 
ties, and based upon the rights of nations to decide their 
own affairs." There was urgent need for a reply that 
would conciliate the radical elements, which by this time / 
were acknowledged to have the real power in Russia. For 
a tacit armistice had already been entered into by the com- 
mon soldiers on the front, and the morale of the army was 
breaking down. At the end of May an earnest appeal was 
made by the Soviets to the Alhed governments to give a , 
definite answer to the formula of '*no annexations, no f' 
indemnities. ' ' 

On June 12 the British and French governments made 
public their answer to the Russian manifesto of April 9. 
Great Britain had replied directly, stating that the pur- 
pose of the United Kingdom ''at the outset" was to defend , , 
its existence ''and to enforce respect for international ar- 
rangements. To these objects has now been added that of 
hberating populations oppressed by alien tyranny." The 
British government was in agreement with the Russian 
declaration of not dominating "other peoples or taking 
from them their national patrimony or forcibly occupying 
foreign territory." Heartily accepting and approving the 
"principles laid down by President Wilson in his message 
to Congress," the British government believed "that, ,/ 
broadly speaking, the agreements which they have from 
time to time made with their allies are conformable to 
these standards. But if the Russian government so de- 



462 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

y sires, they are quite ready with their allies to examine and, 
if need be, to revise these agreements." The French, in 
more general terms, sympathized with the Russian prin- 
ciples, which were their own, but deftly evaded any promise 
^/ to accept ''no annexations, no indemnities," even if the 
restoration of Alsace-Lorraine and the compensation for 
physical damages resulting to France from the German 
invasion were excepted. 

When a final offensive at the beginning of July ended in 

X defeat, the Russian army disappeared as a factor in the 
war. Kerensky became premier on July 16, and tried in 

, vain to induce the Allied powers to realize the consequences 

/ of a refusal to agree to a definite revision of the secret 
treaties along the hues of President Wilson's principles. 
Had not the United States intervened shortly after the 
Russian Revolution and shown amazing zeal and efficiency 
in contributing money and men to the Allied cause, it is 
probable that Kerensky would have met with some meas- 
ure of success in his negotiations. But the Entente states- 

y men deliberately weighed the advantages and disadvan- 
tages of a compromise with revolutionary Russia. On the 
one side, a partial renunciation of imperialism might keep 

y Russia in the war; on the other, there was no telling how 

' far the Russians would force them to go in waiving the 
possible gains of victory, or whether Kerensky or any other 
leader could be counted upon to whip into shape once more 
the Russian armies. Now that the United States was in 
y the war, ultimate victory seemed assured, no matter what 
happened in Russia. 

At the beginning of the revolution the socialists were in 

' favor of continuing the war. The entry of the United 
States, under the aegis of the AVilsonian principles, had 

X made them feel that an Allied victory over Germany would 
estabUsh a new world order. Delegations from Great 

y Britain and France and Italy of cabinet ministers and par- 



EUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 463 

liamentarians of their own political creed assured them 
that there was an increasingly powerful sentiment growing 
up in Allied countries for a durable peace based upon a 
renunciation of imperialism. But as the months dragged 
on and they saw that the Allied governments had no inten- 
tion of defining their war aims and pledging themselves to 
the principle of ''no annexations, no indemnities," even *'^ 
with modifications, they lost interest in sustaining or re- 
creating a war spirit among the people, and either made 
no further effort to retain their leadership or joined the 
extremists. 

Much has been written about various causes of the col- ,^ 
lapse of the Kerensky government. Kerensky is blamed 
for his impracticable theories and his lack of firmness in / 
dealing with the growing power of the Bolshevists. But 
the fundamental factor in undermining his influence and 
paving the way for the Bolshevist regime was the refusal 
of the other Entente powers to give the Russians, who V 
were loyal to the Entente and who wanted to continue the 
war, the assurance that the Entente coalition was ready to 
make peace — if Germany was — on the basis of cooperation 
in establishing a new world order. The majority socialists 
were in sympathy with the program of freeing alien peo- 
ples from Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, and Ottoman domina- 
tion, and they had proved the genuineness of this sympathy 
by consenting to the independence of the peoples similarly 
held under Eomanoff domination. Believing that changes 
of sovereignty should be made with the interests of the 
peoples concerned in view, and not under the influence of 
promoting the interests of the victorious powers, they 
called upon Great Britain, France, and Italy to abandon 
the definite rewards and arrangements of the secret 
treaties, as Russia was willing to do, and to adopt in place 
of them a policy of disinterestedness. They argued that 
the central empires would then have to accept peace on that 



V 



464 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

basis or be put unmistakably in the position of defenders 
and upholders of the principles that the Eussian Revolution 
was combating.^ 

During the autumn of 1917 the war became so unpopular 

?■■ that the loyalty to the Entente of the Kerensky cabinet 

made inevitable its downfall. Food was scarce in the cities, 

and the peasant masses, agitated by the stories of cruelty 

and hardship brought back by deserting soldiers, encour- 

/ aged disobedience of the orders to return, and began to 

threaten to starve out those in the cities who were opposed 

to ending the war. Moreover, their chief interest — and 

y this the soldiers shared — ^had become the expropriation and 

^ further division of the land. The Bolshevists had secured 

/ control of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets and those 

v/ of other large to^ais. By a coup d'etat on November 7 

they overthrew the Kerensky government. The next da}^ 

Lenin formed a new revolutionary committee to govern 

Russia under the name of ''the commissaries of the 

people." 

Trotzky, president of the Petrograd soviet, became 
^ ''commissary of the people for foreign affairs," and cele- 
brated his advent to power by publishing secret treaties 
entered into by Russia and several of the other Allied 
powers. These were followed by the serial publication in 
V a Petrograd newspaper of the correspondence of the Eus- 
sian ambassadors with the ministry of foreign affairs and 

* More than a year later, on September 27, 1918, President Wilson summed 
up and indorsed the attitude of the Russian socialists when he said: "As- 
semblies and associations of many kinds made up of plain workaday people 
have demanded, . . . and are still demanding, that the leaders of their gov- 
ernments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly what it is, that they 
are seeking m this war, and what they think the items of their final settlement 
should be. They are not yet satisfied with what they have been told. They 
still seem to fear that they are getting what they ask for only in statesmen's 
terms — only in the terms of territorial arrangements and discussions of power, 
and not in terms of broad-visioned ,iustice and mercy and peace and the 
satisfaction of these deep-soated longings of oppressed and distracted men 
and women and enslaved peo]>les that seem to them the only things worth 
fighting a war for that engulfs the world. ' ' 



RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 465 

of confidential communications among the Entente powers. 
The authenticity of these documents was not denied. 
They revealed what had long been suspected but could 
not be proved, i. e., the existence of concrete war aims at 
variance with the idealistic professions of the Entente 
statesmen. 

The Bolshevists declared an armistice, entered into nego- 
tiations with the central empires at Brest-Litovsk, and, 
yielding to the pressure of German invasion, signed on 
March 3, 1918, a treaty with Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria, and Turkey, upon the following terms: (1) 
renunciation of sovereignty over Finland, the Baltic prov- 
inces, Lithuania, Poland, and the Ukraine, and evacu- 
ation of these territories; (2) promise to secure for Tur- 
key the due return of her eastern Anatolian frontiers and 
the recognition of the annulment of the Turkish capitula- 
tions; (3) evacuation of the trans-Caucasian provinces; 
(4) internment of Russian and Entente war-ships in the 
Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and Arctic Ocean until the conclu- 
sion of a general peace; (5) complete demobilization of the 
Eussian army. It was agreed that Germany and Austria- 
Hungary were to arrange the status of the liberated ter- 
ritories on the western frontiers, in consultation with the 
inhabitants, and that Turkey should enjoy a similar respon- 
sibility in the districts of Ardahan, Kars, and Batum. The 
Ukraine, having signed a separate treaty with the central 
powers coalition, was recognized by Russia as an inde- 
pendent state. Lenin and Trotzky declared that the gov- 
ernment was compelled to conclude peace on the terms dic- 
tated by German imperialism, but that the Russian people 
could look forward confidently to a later general peace, 
concluded on equal terms with all people after the other 
nations, like Russia, had rid themselves of their capitalist 
governments. Trotzky changed his portfolio to that of 
military and naval affairs, and was succeeded in the con- 



466 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

duct of foreign affairs by Tchitcherin. Up to the present 
writing ^ these three men had remained in control of Kus- 
sian destinies. 

The collapse of the central empires and Turkey de- 
stroyed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, whose terms were 
denounced by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey in 
the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain, Trianon, and 
Sevres. By later treaties, concluded directly with the peo- 
ples concerned, the soviet government recognized the inde- 
pendence, and agreed upon the new frontiers, of Finland, 
Esthonia, Latvia, and Poland. Through the post-armistice 
military intervention of Great Britain and France, govern- 
ments independent of Moscow, Berlin, and Constantinople 
were set up in the Ukraine, Baku (called the Azerbaidjan 
Eepublic), Georgia, and Armenia, and were given de facto 
recognition. But while the four Baltic Sea republics and 
Poland had been able, through their own efforts and some 
aid from the Entente, to preserve their independence, repel 
Bolshevist invasions, and secure frontiers more favorable 
than those accorded them by the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 
the Ukraine and the republics of the Caucasus succumbed 
to Bolshevist propaganda. Before the end of 1921 these 
states had adopted the soviet form of government and were 
closely allied with Moscow. 

After the defection of Russia the Entente powers re- 
fused to recognize the soviet government on the ground 
that it did not express the will of the people. Therefore 
they declared that they were justified in intervening with 
military forces to carry on their war against Germany on 
Russian soil. The armistices were signed, jet the Entente 
powers, including the United States, did not withdraw 
their troops from Russia. On the contrary, they adopted 
the attitude that the soviet government was the enemy of 
mankind, and they did all in their power to aid counter- 
revolutionary movements. In addition, the blockade meas- 

» May, 1922. 



EUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 467 

ures, which had proved so effective against Germany and 
which had been extended to Eussia without a declaration of 
war, were maintained. Successively, however, during 1919 
and 1920, the Bolshevist armies defeated General Denikin, 
Admiral Kolchak, General Yudenitch, and Baron Wrangel, 
who had behind them Entente diplomatic and military sup- 
port,^ and the Ukrainian General Petlura, who was backed 
by Poland. 

The history of the French Revolution repeated itself. 
Every effort of counter-revolutionary armies, working for 
the restoration of the monarchy and receiving aid from 
foreign powers, not only met with disaster, but also 
strengthened the hold on the people, which was slight at 
first, of the regime that the world had determined to de- 
stroy. When foreign troops invaded Russia at Archangel, 
at Vladivostok, and at Odessa, national feeling ran high. 
When the British simply replaced the Turks and the Ger- 
mans in the Caucasus and revealed the fact that they were 
aiming at the oil-wells of Baku, the bulk of the more intelli- 
gent Russians still alive in their own country rallied to 
Lenin, though they loathed him. When France armed and 
trained the Poles and incited them to attack Russia, and 
when the Russians realized that the French diplomatic and 
military agents in Czecho-Slovakia and Rumania were try- 
ing to induce these states to join Poland, from general to 
private the Russians who truly loved their country offered 
their swords to Lenin. 

The Russian Revolution, culminating in a separate peace 
with Germany and in the establishment of a communist 

* British, French, and Greek military missions and troops were with Denikin ; 
Kolchak had Czecho-Slovak and Japanese aid, and Americans guarding his 
lines of communication; a British military mission in Esthonia and the com- 
bined Allied forces at Archangel inspired Yudenitch 's march on Petrograd; 
and Baron Wrangel was actually recognized by the French government. All 
these attempts to overthrow Lenin were made possible by Entente supplies, 
and even the Eed Cross abandoned its neutrality to further the anti-Bolshevist 
propaganda by giving medicines, food, and clothing to the Eussians who wel- 
comed these adventures and withholding its ministrations from the regions 
that did not join the anti-Bolshevist armies. 



y 



y 



> 



468 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

government of remarkable energy and stability,^ has influ- 
enced world politics in a way that the defeat of Germany 
did not do and that the victory of Germany would not have 
done. For, despite her success in penetrating the Ottoman 
Empire and her Shantung venture, Germany was not a 
factor of prime importance either in the Near East or in 
the Far East. Had she won the war she would still not 
have had control of the sea, and she was not in territory 
contiguous to the Ottoman Empire and China. Losing the 
war, Germany withdrew from world politics without radi- 
cally affecting the struggle of the more fortunate European 
powers, Japan, and the United States for world power 
and world markets. Russia, on the other hand, had been 
an integral factor in the development of the Near Eastern 
and Far Eastern questions. She had affected the evolution 
of British colonial policy, directly in the protection of India 
and indirectly in the arrangement of spheres of influence 
in Africa. As we have seen, the alliance that the Germans 
believed was encircling them in Europe and excluding them 
from markets outside Europe had been possible because 
Russia was a colonial power, imbued mth the same impe- 
rialistic ambitions as France and Great Britain, and was 
able to bargain with the other two colonial powers, while 
Germany had to shake her saber to make her voice heard.- 
The geographical position of Russia gave her the key posi- 
tion in world politics. She was neighbor to the central 
empires and the Balkan States in Europe, and to the Otto- 
man Empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan in 
Asia. 

The withdrawal of Russia from the World War by the 

* The writer ■wishes to remind his readers that the limitation of the scope 
of his subject to the phases affecting international relations makes impossible 
and irrelevant mention of many other aspects of the situations with which his 
chapters deal. In order that there may be no misunderstanding, he wishes 
it to be understood that the statement of facts does not necessarily mean that 
he is glad that they are facts I The A\Titer has no sympathy with the methods 
of Bolshevism, and no faith in its economic theories. 

»See Chapters XIV and XV. 



EUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 469 

treaty of Brest-Litovsk came too late to give the victory 
to Germany. But this defection from the Entente alliance, 
coupled with the defection of Rumania two days later/ 
would have enabled Germany and her allies to conclude an 
advantageous peace, had not the United States demon- 
strated her ability to place in France an army of unlimited 
strength and excellent fighting quality despite the subma- 
rine blockade. The United States, however, did not and 
could not take the place of Russia in the combinations of 
European diplomacy, in reference either to the balance of 
power in Europe or to the maintenance of the doctrine of 
European eminent domain in Asia. By denouncing the pre- 
war arrangements, on which Great Britain relied for her 
security in Asia and France for her security in Europe, 
and by renouncing the privileges accorded Russia for 
further expansion in the secret treaties concluded during 
the war, Lenin and his associates not only robbed the 
Entente powers of the fruits of victory so exactly provided 
for by their statesmen, but also challenged the status quo 
ante helium in Asia. 

The fear of the spread of Bolshevism to the rest of 
Europe and to the United States had little to do with the 
bitter opposition of the French and British governments to 
the soviet regime. Political, economic, and social condi- 
tions in central and western Europe and America do not , / 
furnish fruitful ground for communist propaganda. 
Entente statesmen knew this, but they played up the Bol- 
shevist nightmare during the peace conference and after- - 
wards in the effort to destroy the soviet government before / 
its influence might extend throughout Asia and into Africa, 
imperiling the hold of the colonial powers upon their sub- 
ject races. This is a strong statement, but many signifi- 
cant facts can be adduced to support it. The defeated ' 
countries did not adopt Bolshevism as the alternative to 

* The preliminary treaty between Rumania and the central empires waa 
signed on March 5, 1918. 



470 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

signing drastic treaties. Italy, who had no colonial in- 

^ terests of importance to consider, was the least alarmed of 
the Entente powers, although she was more seriously 
threatened by communist propaganda than any other coun- 
try in Europe. When Great Britain realized that Lenin 
could not be overthrown, her government and her courts 
recognized the new regime as the de facto government, 
/ exacting not the repudiation of the pohtical theories and 

^' practices against which the crusade had been declared, but 
the cessation of propaganda in India and the countries that 
formed the shields to India. The military intervention of 
Japan was aimed at preventing Bolshevist propaganda 

y from reaching China and Korea as much as at inheriting 
Muscovite influence in Mongolia and Manchuria and con- 
trolling the future of Siberia east of Lake Baikal. The. 
Entente powers did not intend that the destruction of Ger- 
man and Russian autocracy should be followed by a world- 
wide political and colonial readjustment in which the same 
principles would be applied to the territories and depen- 
dencies of all nations. 

The opportunism and lack of guiding principles in world 

y politics are demonstrated by the capital the Entente 
powers endeavored to make out of the misfortunes of 
^us^ia after the victory over Germany was assured. If 
Allied statesmen believed that the great mass of the Russian 
Y people was opposed to Bolshevism, and was being terror- 
' ized by a gang of ruffians subsidized by Germany, the rigor- 
ous blockade of more than a hundred million human beings, 
our allies, was inexplicable. If, on the other hand, they 
believed that Russia was so contaminated with Bolshevism 
/- that a cordon samtaire was necessary, continued military 
intervention after Germany had sued for peace was an 
act of war against a great nation, based upon our condem- 
nation of that nation's management of its internal affairs. 
President Wilson tried to put an end to this anomalous 
situation by proposing the Prinkipo conference in Febru- 



1 



RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 471 

ary, 1919. The suggestion was howled down, but nothing 
constructive was adopted in its place. At that time Entente 
statesmen might have been justified in holding that the 
Bolshevists were usurpers; they were not justified in re- 
fusing to look upon the civil war in Russia from the point 
of view of helping the Russian people to their feet. There 
was no sympathy for a great people in the throes of politi- 
cal and social evolution. Occidental Europe and America 
did not want to admit the right of the Russians to work 
out their own salvation without interference; nor did we 
give the anti-Bolshevists the right to speak for Russia at ■< 
the Paris conference, nor assure them that we should make 
no decision affecting Russian territories and interests with- 
out their participation and consent. 

The occasion was considered propitious for carrying out 
policies that would have been modified or blocked by what- 
ever delegates the Entente governments might have been y 
willing to regard as representing genuine Russian senti- 
ments and the interests of the Russian people. At the 
peace conference Russians would have insisted upon a 
drastic modification of Italy's gains in return for giving 
up Constantinople ; they would have contested the right of , j 
Great Britain to speak for Persia, to erect the Azerbaidjan 
Republic, and to give Palestine as a home-land to the Jews ; 
and they would have protested vehemently against the 
policies of France in Poland and the other successor states, 
and of Japan in Siberia, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The 
strongest argument Lenin was able to make in bidding for 
united Russian support, aside from the obvious one of 
foreign invasion, was when he pointed out in speeches and V 
manifestos that the '* capitalist countries" were not hold- 
ing Russian imperial interests in sacred trust for the ''capi- 
talist Russia" they professed their eagerness to reestab- 
lish. If the Entente powers and the United States were 
sincere in their friendship for the Russian people, as Amer- 
ican Secretary of State Colby asserted in his note of 



472 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

August 20, 1919, why did they agree to the annexation of 
Bessarabia to Eumania, encourage Polish imperialism, 
attempt to alienate the Caucasus, allow Japan to stay in 
V. Siberia, and make a division of the spoils of the war in the 
Near East and elsewhere without reserving any part for 
Russia when she should ^'return to her senses"? 

Soviet Russia during 1921 radically modified its com- 
munist theories of government and abandoned its revolu- 
tionary propaganda in Europe and America. The blockade 
and the impracticability of the soviet theories combined to 
bring the country to economic ruin and to famine. The 
renewal of trade with the outside world was essential, and 
food-stuffs had to be solicited from America to save 
millions from starvation. Gradually Russia is returning of 
her own accord into the family of ''capitalistic nations," 
But Moscow has not abandoned the intention of allowing 
all the former subject races of the Russian Empire to work 
out their own destinies in their own way. This in itself 
is a danger to European overlordship in Asia and in the 
Mohammedan countries of Africa, however much Lenin 
may find it to the interest of his country to abide loyally 
by the trade agreement entered into with Great Britain, 
and prevent Russia from being used as the base of self- 
determination propaganda. 

Unless Russia again becomes reactionary and imbued 
with the spirit of imperialism, however, the mischief in the 
Near East, the Middle East, and the Par East can not be 
repaired. Soviet Russia has renounced the capitulations 
in Turkey, the Anglo-Persian agreement of 1907, and her 
concessions and leaseholds in Persia and China. She has 
canceled the Persian debt and the Boxer indemnity, and 
has concluded treaties with Persia, Afghanistan, and her 
former Moslem subjects of central Asia on the basis of 
equality. This gives no further excuse for Great Britain 
to interfere in the internal affairs of Persia and Afghanis- 
tan, and sets an embarrassing example of international 



y 



RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH 473 

morality for the other European powers to follow. In 
China especially, the Russian Revolution, despite what was 
accomplished at Washington, has confronted Europe and 
the United States with the choice of allowing Japan to be- 
come the dominant power in the Far East or renouncing 
particular interests for the common good of all nations. 



CHAPTER XLII 

OVEESEAS POSSESSIONS OF "SECONDAEY STATES" 
(1815-1922) 

ASIDE from the five principal allied and associated 
powers, two other belligerents, Portugal and Bel- 
gium, and three neutrals, Spain, Denmark, and Holland, 
had title to overseas possessions after the peace conference 
completed its work. 

The Portuguese footholds in Asia are insignificant: on 
the west coast of India the enclaves of Goa and Damao ; in 
the Arabian Sea the little island of Dio ; in the Malay Archi- 
pelago the eastern portion of Timor with a strip called 
Ambeno on the neighboring island of Pulo Cambing; and 
the island of Macao at the mouth of the Canton River in 
China. The Portuguese colonial possessions in Africa, 
however, are important not only because of their size and 
potential wealth, but also because of their geographical dis- 
tribution. The Madeira and Azores Islands are considered 
an integral part of Portugal. The colonies are : the Cape 
Verde Islands, Guinea, Sao Thome and Principe, Angola, 
and Portuguese East Africa. They cover nearly eight hun- 
dred thousand square miles, and have a population of more 
than eight millions. 

The fourteen islands of the Cape Verde group are on the 
route from Europe to South America and command the 
coastal passage around Africa. The cables to Brazil and 
to South Africa, and also the line to British Gambia, touch 
at St. Vincent. Guinea is an enclave in French West 
Africa. Sao Thome and Principe are advantageously lo- 
cated in the Gulf of Guinea. Angola extends from the 
mouth of the Congo south to former German Southwest 

474 



SECONDARY STATES' OVERSEAS POSSESSIONS 475 

Africa. Portuguese East Africa occupies the east coast 
from Cape Delgadq, the boundary with former German 
East Africa, south to Delagoa Bay, which cuts oif the 
Transvaal from the sea, and lies just north of Natal. Por- 
tugal has not been able to keep pace with the other colonial 
powers in the development of either Asiatic or African 
colonies, and, as she is not a maritime power, they have no 
strategic value to her. She has retained her colonies only 
because for the past two hundred years she has never been 
in antagonism with British policy nor allied to one of 
Britain's enemies. 

Before the World War the Portuguese colonies loomed 
large in world politics, because Great Britain and France, 
especially the former, feared that Germany planned to 
annex them, either by seizure or by purchase. Angola and 
East Africa became neighbors of Germany between 1884 
and 1889, and it was feared that some pretext would be 
invented to seize them when Great Britain was fighting the 
Boers. What worried the British most was the thought of 
having Germany in possession of islands on the trade 
routes. Consequently, at the beginning of the Boer War 
the British government sounded Germany as to her inten- 
tions and indicated its willingness to agree upon an even- 
tual division of the Portuguese colonies, should Portugal 
at any time feel the necessity of disposing of them. These 
pourparlers were resumed in 1913, and the British were 
willing to consent to the continental expansion of Germany 
in Africa, provided they could acquire the islands. The 
war put an end to the plan of joint purchase. Portugal 
retains all her colonies, but, as Great Britain and France 
have more of Africa than they can develop and there are 
no other bidders, the Portuguese colonies have no present 
international market value or importance. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century the convention 
of 1890 between Belgium and the Congo Free State was 
about to expire. The question of annexation was raised in 



476 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Belgium, and in the rest of the world the question of the 
fitness of the Belgians to be the stewards of so large and 
important a part of the African continent. Livingstone's 
dream of central Africa for Christ had been superseded by 
the actuality of central Africa for rubber, and European 
penetration of the Dark Continent, far from bringing civ- 
ilization and happiness to the natives, had left them in 
barbarism and brought them misery. In 1902 the British 
Foreign Office intimated to the powers that had signed the 
Berlin act that it might be advisable to put an end to the 
maladministration of the Congo Free State.^ Failing to 
secure agreement among the powers, the British govern- 
ment in 1903 independently made strong diplomatic repre- 
sentations at Brussels. Belgium was told that this action 
was prompted, not by tales of travelers and missionaries, 
but by reports of British consuls, one corroborating the 
other in such a fashion that the evidence could not be con- 
troverted.^ The Belgian public took this move in bad part. 
It w^as felt that Great Britain's motive in protesting against 
the conditions in the Congo was the desire to appropriate 
the fruit of the work that had converted the Congo into 
a rich domain and to link up the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 
with the British possessions in south-central Africa for 
the purpose of realizing the Cape-to-Cairo all-British 
railway. 

On December 4, 1907, the Belgian government presented 
to the Chamber a treaty between King Leopold and Bel- 
gium. The Congo Free State was purchased by Belgium 
from the king, but the government refused to be respon- 

^ The -writer regrets that he is unable to give the necessary space in this 
volume to a statement of the various international conferences and agree- 
ments concerning Africa. See Hcrslett, "The Map of Africa by Treaty." 

* The British government published a memorandum of Lord Cromer, -vvho 
declared from personal investigation that the population of the Belgian 
bank of the Nile was practically extinct ; that the Belgians were so hated 
and feared that no Belgian officer could move outside of the settlements 
■without a strong guard; that the natives fled from the Belgian officials; and 
that the Belgian soldiers were allowed by their superiors full liberty to 
plunder, and rarely made payment for supplies. 



SECONDARY STATES' OVERSEAS POSSESSIONS 477 

sible for the debt of nearly $23,000,000. The status of the 
colony was established by a special law, and provision was 
made for its government. The powers were faced with a 
fait accompli. In 1885 they had erected the Congo into a 
free and independent state and had guaranteed its per- 
petual neutrality. Germany recognized the transfer of the 
country to Belgium, but Great Britain withheld her assent 
until 1913, when the Belgian administration proved that 
the old conditions had been remedied. 

During the first year of the European war there was 
much discussion about the future of the Congo. Germany 
intended to use her hold on Belgium, if she had been able 
to maintain it until peace negotiations began, as a trump 
card in the readjustment of European spheres in Africa. 
Had she been successful it would have meant the realiza- 
tion of the German dream of a path from east to west 
across the continent. The Germans insinuated that the 
great sums loaned to Belgium by the Allies were secured 
by an Anglo-French economic, if not political, mortgage of 
the Congo. In order to offset this propaganda, the French 
minister handed to the Belgian minister of foreign affairs 
at Havre, on April 29, 1916, a note that read : 

* ' The government of the French Republic declares that it 
will lend its aid to the Belgian government at the time of 
the peace negotiations with the view of maintaining the 
Belgian Congo in its present territorial status and of hav- 
ing attributed to this colony a special indemnity for the 
losses incurred in the course of the war." 

On the same day the British and Russian ministers stated 
that their governments adhered to this declaration, and the 
Italian and Japanese ministers that Italy and Japan ap- 
proved of the French note. "When the war ended, in regard 
to the territorial status quo of the Congo the Entente 
powers were as good as their word. But the Belgians were 
indignant when they learned that Great Britain and France 



478 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

had secured the consent of President Wilson to a division 
of the German colonies in Africa. The Union of South 
Africa was to be the mandatory for German Southwest 
Africa, and the British government was to administer 
directly German East Africa. The Belgians raised a howl, 
for they had helped materially in the long war against 
Germany along the east African frontier and had contrib- 
uted men and material in the final campaign. Were they 
to have no territorial reward? When the news of the Big 
Four's inandate arrangements reached Brussels, King 
Albert went to Paris by airplane, and succeeded in w^rest- 
ing from the British certain districts of the new British 
colony. This incident is worth mentioning, for it shows 
how, before the treaty of Versailles was signed, the British 
government had discounted the mandate idea. The treaty 
ceded the German colonies to the five principal allied and 
associated powers, and the League covenant (article XXII) 
provided for a mandatory regime under the control of the 
League of Nations. But the British regarded German East 
Africa as theirs by right of conquest, and gave a bit of it 
to the Belgians, who had helped them win it. 

Spain's colonial empire received its death-blow in the 
war with the United States. Her overseas possessions, 
after the treaty of Paris, were reduced to three small 
colonies of slight value and no importance on the west 
African coast; a strip of Guinea coast and five islands in 
the Gulf of Guinea ; and the Riff coast of Morocco opposite 
Gibraltar.^ Only the Spanish colony in Morocco is of in- 
ternational importance. Because of geographical prox- 
imity, Spain has been interested in Morocco since the Mid- 
dle Ages, and at one time or another she established claims 
to the Moroccan coast both on the Atlantic and on the 
Mediterranean. These claims were not acknowledged by 

' The Canary Islands are considered by the Spaniards an integral part of 
thoir country, just as the Portuguese consider the Azores and Madeira. There 
has never been any question of Spain or Portugal parting with any of 
these islands. 



SECONDARY STATES' OVERSEAS POSSESSIONS 479' 

the natives except when force was applied, and they became 
a source of international dispute when France began to 
extend her protectorate over Morocco. After Great Britain 
and Germany had withdrawn their opposition to the French 
penetration of Morocco, Spain was compelled to come to 
terms with France. By the treaty of Madrid, signed on 
November 27, 1912, France accepted the right of Spain to 
exercise her influence in a clearly defined Spanish zone 
along the Mediterranean for about two hundred miles, with 
a hinterland averaging sixty miles. The district of Tangier 
was neutralized; but the Spanish zone extended along the 
hinterland of Tangier to the Atlantic, thus cutting off Tan- 
gier from communication with Fez and the rest of 
Morocco. 

A large portion of the Spanish zone, called the Eiff, has 
never been pacified, and occasionally the Spaniards have 
been besieged in their ports. Successful defiance of Span- 
ish authority and the resultant anarchy have greatly an- 
noyed and retarded the French in their effort to make 
Morocco a French protectorate. As long as the Spanish 
remain in possession of the northern tip of Morocco, the 
development of Tangier is blocked, and French administra- 
tive control suffers. Relations between Spain and France 
on the Moroccan question have been strained for the past 
decade. Since the World War France has attempted to get 
the Spanish out of Morocco. In 1921 the Spanish were 
badly beaten by the natives in the Riff. In fact, the dis- 
aster was the worst blow to European prestige in Africa 
since the Italians were routed by the Abyssinians at Adowa 
twenty-five years before. But the Spaniards hold on grimly 
to their last overseas possession. It is at once their 
Naboth's vineyard and the souvenir of their great colonial 
empire. 

Since the sale of her West Indian islands to the United 
States in 1917, Greenland has been the only colonial pos- 
session of Denmark. Its inhospitable climate and ice- 



480 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

bound location make it of no international importance. 
Iceland was under Danish rule for centuries, but received 
autonomy in 1874. On November 30, 1918, an act of union 
made Iceland a free sovereign state, united to Denmark 
only by a personal bond of union under the king of Den- 
mark. The Danish government informed the powers, 
shortly after the World War was concluded, that she recog- 
nized Iceland as a sovereign state. 

We have seen how the Napoleonic wars ended disas- 
trously for Holland. Her forced alliance with France gave 
tlie British an excuse to seize the Cape of Good Hope, to 
penalize Holland by detaching Berbice, Demerara, and Es- 
sequibo from Surinam, and to legalize the capture of the 
foreign settlements in Ceylon by the presidency of Madras. 
The convention of London, signed on August 13, 1814, and 
recognized in the treaty of Vienna, took from Holland all 
her colonies except the East Indies, the island of Cura§oa 
in the West Indies, and part of Surinam in South America. 
This agreement has often been criticized by British writers, 
who believe that the restoration of the Dutch East Indies 
was a sad and inexplicable blunder. 

In extent and population the Dutch East Indies are by 
far the most important island group of colonies in Asia 
— in fact, in the entire world. They are nearly seven times 
as large and seven times as populous as our Philippine- 
Sulu group, which hes north of them. With the exception 
of the northern side of Borneo, which is British, and the 
eastern end of Timor, which is Portuguese, the Dutch are 
in undisputed possession of all the islands between the 
Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean from the Strait of 
Malacca to New Guinea. Sumatra forms one side of the 
Strait of Malacca, and the Eiau-Lingga archipelago con- 
trols the approach to Singapore. Except Java, none of the 
islands has been completely pacified or administratively 
organized. While Java has only one fifth of the area of 
the East Indies, her population is probabl}' three quarters 



SECONDARY STATES' OVERSEAS POSSESSIONS 481 

of the total. There are four cities in Java of more than 
100,000, and railways extend throughout the island. 

A sense of justice may have prompted the conquerors of 
Napoleon to recognize that the Dutch alliance with France 
had been a case of force majeure, atoned for by the aid 
given at Waterloo, and that the taking of Ceylon, the Cape 
of Good Hope, and a part of Holland's possessions in 
America was sufficient punishment. But sound policy dic- 
tated leaving Holland with rich colonies. The advantage to 
Great Britain of giving back the East Indies may not have 
been apparent at the time. Probably it was not thought of 
at all. But in more than one international crisis the fear 
of losing her colonies has acted as a deterrent to anti- 
British tendencies of Dutch foreign policy. Hollanders had 
to be guarded in the expression of their sentiments at the 
time of the Boer War. In the World War joining forces 
with Germany would have proved as great a risk to Hol- 
land as taking sides against Germany; and in the East 
Indies the Dutch, far less pro -German than in Holland, 
prudently maintained a "benevolent" neutrality towards 
the Entente. The influence of Great Britain's sea power 
was felt by Holland, as by Italy and Greece. 

In 1913 a commission on the defense of the West Indies 
declared that it was necessary for Holland to build a fleet 
to protect the colonies, and the creation of a new navy was 
already under way when Germany precipitated the Euro- 
pean war. In view of the precarious position of the pos- 
sessions in the East Indies, which Holland can not hope to 
defend by her own means, no country was more interested 
in the formation of a league of nations to guarantee the 
present colonial status quo, and, when that failed, in the 
deliberations of the Washington conference. The brilliant 
prospects for Holland in the Asiatic colonies are depen- 
dent upon world peace and a strict prohibition by inter- 
national agreement of the sale of arms to natives. In 1920 
and 1921 the United States engaged in an acrimonious cor- 



482 AN INTRODUCTION TO AVORLD POLITICS 

respondence with Holland over the question of discrimina- 
tion against Americans in affording opportunities for the 
development of the mineral oil resources of the East Indies. 
But until weak nations like Holland feel that their pos- 
sessions are secure by international agreements, and not 
by the grace of one or more great powers, favors will be 
granted — in self-defense — to the nationals of the power by 
whose good-will they are allowed to hold colonies. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

FEENCH COLONIAL PEOBLEMS (1901-1922) 

APTEE the World War, as before, France held second 
place to Great Britain in the extent, population, dis- 
tribution, and importance of her colonial possessions. 
These two powers had been the principal beneficiaries of 
the treaties of Versailles and Sevres. Japan had a small 
share in the division of the German colonies, and Italy in- 
herited a little of the Ottoman Empire. France received 
Morocco, Kamerun, Togoland, and Syria. 

The colonial problems of France fall under six heads: 
(1) the place of Prance in the Near East; (2) the place of 
Prance in the Par East and in the Pacific; (3) the rela- 
tions between France and her scattered colonies; (4) the 
political consolidation of the north African empire; (5) the 
military value of the colonies; and (6) the economic ex- 
ploitation of the colonies. 

Ever since the crusades Prance has been interested in 
the Near East, and after the eclipse of the Italian city- 
states French culture and commerce formed the principal 
link between Europe and the Christian races of the Otto- 
man Empire. During the nineteenth century French for- 
eign policy attempted to use ancient treaties and privileges 
to prevent Russia and Great Britain from gaining a para- 
mount influence in the Near East. Great Britain, however, 
succeeded in getting control of Cyprus and Egypt, though 
both countries were attached to Prance by ancient bonds 
and were in proximity to Syria, which France had coveted 
for centuries. By the agreement of 1904, France withdrew 
her opposition to the consolidation of British power in the 

483 



484 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Near East through the possession of Egypt and the Sudan, 
in return for the withdrawal of British opposition to 
French penetration in Morocco. But tlie World War re- 
kindled old aspirations, and France bargained with Great 
Britain to divide the Arabic-speaking portions of the Otto- 
man Empire. When Turkey signed the armistice, Syria 
was occupied by France, and has been under French mili- 
tary domination ever since. 

The French have not made a success of their ambitious 
undertaking in the northeastern corner of the Mediterra- 
nean. Only one, and that a minority, element in Syria 
wanted France as mandatory; all the Syrians, irrespective 
of creed, have resented the mutilation of their country by 
the exclusion of Palestine; the Moslems, who formed the 
majority, are not content to be French subjects, when in 
the adjacent Hedjaz the Arabs are independent and in 
the adjacent Irak they enjoy autonomy. Bad blood has 
been created by the contradictory promises made to the 
French and the Arabs by the British, and by the fact that 
Emir Feisal, whom the French drove out of Damascus, has 
been made king of the Irak by the British.^ 

At first the French occupied Cilicia. But the military 
pressure and propaganda of the Turkish nationalists made 
them realize that they could not hold this fertile province, 
which they had always maintained was a part of Syria, and 
to make secure their position in the latter country they 
were compelled in the summer of 1921 to conclude a treaty 
with the Angora government, by which they abandoned not 
only Cilicia but also several districts of northern Syria. 
Coming at the same time as the coronation of Feisal at 
Bagdad, the treaty of Angora was a serious blow to French 
prestige.^ 

The French are finding the occupation of Syria expen- 
sive, dangerous, and fruitless. It makes them offend the 
susceptibilities of the Mohanmiedans, which they can ill 

^See p. 440. "See pp. 436-437, 454. 



FRENCH COLONIAL PROBLEMS (1901-1922) 485 

afford to do ; it gives rise to friction with the British ; and 
it demands soldiers and money that France does not have 
to give. This situation was foreseen by many prominent 
Frenchmen, who beheved that France should not attempt 
to extend her authority in the Mediterranean east of Tu- 
nisia, unless it were to occupy Constantinople. These 
critics of the Syrian policy pointed out that France had no 
bases in neighboring territories, as the British had in 
handling Mesopotamia and Palestine. Syria, they said, 
would always be a drain on France, and the French hold 
precarious; while Constantinople could be managed by a 
few war-vessels, without expense or risk to prestige. 

The place of France in the Far East and in the Pacific 
does not involve, as in the Near East, embarking upon a 
new and complicated venture, with disadvantages out- 
weighing advantages. In Indo-China a rich colonial empire 
had been created before the war, and its development had 
not brought France into conflict with other European 
powers.^ The only danger that could menace Indo-China 
was Japanese aggression. France could not hope to defend 
Indo-China against Japan, and in the logic of events it has 
seemed that the next challenge to Europe issued by Japan 
would be against France.^ But, fortunately for France, 
Great Britain holds Hong-Kong and Kowloon and the 
United States the Philippines, which are strategically at 
the mercy of Japan. Until these powers become enemies, 
Japan will have to wait. The only other way that France 's 
present position in the Far East can be questioned is if, 
because of the maintenance of high export and import 
duties in Indo-China, Japan and the United States raise in 
diplomatic conference the question of bringing once more 

^ In their respective encroacliments upon the sovereignty of China and Siam, 
Great Britain and France had reached a common frontier, which threatened 
friction. The British charged that the French advance of frontier violated 
an Anglo -Chinese treaty (see pp. 61-62). Differences of opinion were settled 
by the Anglo-French agreement of 1904 (see pp. 192-193). 

* See the opening paragraphs of Chapters X, XII, and XXVIII. 



486 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITIC^ 

under Cliinese suzerainty her former outlying provinces 
and tributary kingdoms.^ 

The British delegates at the Washington conference 
argued that overseas possessions necessitated a large 
navy. This argument provoked discussion in Paris con- 
cerning the relations between France and her scattered 
colonies. The Pacific islands are taken care of by the 
four-power treaty, signed during the Washington confer- 
ence. But France has also Guadeloupe and Martinique in 
the West Indies; a colony in Guiana on the South Ameri- 
can continent ; the little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon 
off Labrador; and Reunion, Mayotte, the Comoro Islands, 
and Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. On the Afri- 
can continent Djibouti is an isolated colony of the Somali 
coast at the entrance of the Eed Sea. These possessions, 
for the most part remnants of France's ancient colonial 
empire, and closely attached on sentimental grounds to the 
mother country, are, as well as the French possessions in 
India, not near one another. Great Britain has all her 
colonies and dependencies, on mainland and island, closely 
linked together. In addition, she controls the seas. In 
sea power, France has bound herself at Washington to the 
ratio of 1.75 to 5 in relation to Great Britain. If she later 
agrees to admit limitation of submarines and light surface 
craft to the same ratio as that decided upon for capital 
ships, France is likely to demand the extension of the 
principle of guaranty, confined to Pacific islands in the 
four-power treaty, to possessions throughout the world. 
Pushed to its logical conclusion, the coupling of a guaranty 
with the fixing of a ratio in naval and military strength 
means the adoption by the great powers of a more specific 
mutual guaranty of the world-wide status quo than that 
implied in article X of the League of Nations covenant. 

* During the Washington conference the question was frequently asked, 
"What is China?" If China includes Manchuria and the two Mongolias, 
does not her sovereignty (once we start tampering with the existing situation) 
extend over Indo-Cliiua and the maritime province of Russia? 



FRENCH COLONIAL PROBLEMS (1901-1922) 487 

The evolution of French foreign and colonial policy since 
1900, culminating in the treaty of Versailles at the end of 
a successful war, has tended principally to the creation of 
a consolidated north African empire. A glance at the map 
will show why the Moroccan question was considered of 
sufficient importance for French statesmen to abandon 
Egypt and the Sudan to Great Britain, thus renouncing 
the dream of a French belt across Africa; to antagonize 
Germany to the point of war; and to pursue a policy 
towards Spain which, after the World War, remains un- 
compromisingly hostile.^ First of all, Morocco was needed 
to make Algeria secure; and then, when France expanded 
across the Sahara Desert, it was realized that the African 
empire of French dreams would be practicable strategi- 
cally, politically, and economically only if France controlled 
Morocco. The protectorate of 1912 received international 
sanction in the treaty of Versailles. Moreover, Germany's 
two colonies in west Africa were given to France, and the 
British consented to changes in the boundaries of Nigeria. 
The acquisition of Togoland removed the fly in France's 
ointment in west Africa, and the elimination of Germany 
in equatorial Africa gave France a clear sweep of territory 
from the Congo to the Mediterranean. 

Through Algeria, Tunisia, and now Morocco, all parts 
of the French north African empire can be reached by land. 
Airplanes have radically changed the great problem of the 
Sahara Desert, and it is probable that within the next few 
years railways will reach from Tunis to Lake Chad and the 
Congo, and from Algiers to Timbuktu, Senegal, and Da- 
homey. By the Atlantic the distance is not great from 
Bordeaux to the Moroccan, west African, and equatorial 
African ports. From the double standpoint of defense and 

^ See p. 479. Although economic reasons are advanced, the refusal of 
France to renew her tariff convention with Spain (February, 1922) is due 
to the Moroccan question. French public opinion demands the withdrawal of 
the Spanish from their Moroccan zones if they are unwilling and unable 
to maintain order there. 



488 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

economic opportunity, no colonial possession of a Euro- 
pean power rivals France's north African empire. France 
does not have the problem of distance. 

But as her African colonies are developed and become 
more essential to the well-being of France, French states- 
men see the vital importance of naval control in the western 
part of the Mediterranean. The future of the north Afri- 
can colonies depends upon the ability of France to assure 
against interruption from any quarter communications be- 
tween Marseilles and Cette and the Mediterranean African 
ports. Unless, by agreement or independently, France en- 
joys naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, it will be 
unwise for her to grow to look upon the north African 
empire as an extension of France and a reservoir of sol- 
diers, food-stuffs, and raw materials. This situation 
threatens to precipitate a new crisis in international rela- 
tions. Italy is wholly a Mediterranean power, and, if she 
can not control the Mediterranean herself, she prefers to 
see Great Britain and France offset each other. Great 
Britain regards the Mediterranean as an essential link 
between the mother country, India, and Australasia, and 
ever since the Suez Canal was cut her foreign policy has 
aimed at control of this sea.^ 

The part played by colonial troops, chiefly blacks, in 
resisting the German invasion of 1914, and, in fact, through- 
out the World War, has not been minimized or forgotten 
by the French. The Latin races do not share our Anglo- 
Saxon prejudice against colored peoples. The French 
frankly admitted their debt to Africans and Asiatics in 

^ The naval agreement between Great Britain and France before the World 
War, which seemingly gave France the preponderance of naval power in the 
Mediterranean, was concluded for a specific purpose, i. c, holding Germany 
in check, and was not intended by the British to be even a tacit acknowledg- 
ment of France's right to a larger navy than Great Britain's in the Medi- 
terranean. If France had acted in opposition to any British interests, there 
was notliing in the agreonient to prevent the British from sending to t'le 
Mediterranean all the shi]is they wanted to. The new principle, adopicd 
at Washington, of limit ntion of tleets by scrapping and a naval holiday, 
brings up a new strategic problem. It takes away the potential ability of 
sending ships when needed to assert the authority of the great naval power. 



FRENCH COLONIAL PROBLEMS (1901-1922) 489 

winning the war, and did not hesitate to station colonial 
troops in the occupied regions of Germany. We regard as 
negroes any race with an admixture of negro blood, and 
we class among colored races virtually all Africans and 
Asiatics. To the French, the Tunisians, Algerians, Ber- 
bers, Moroccans, Malagasy, and Indo-Chinese are not in 
any essential different from white people. Only the natives 
of west and equatorial Africa are blacks, and the French, 
while agreeing that these people are different from us, 
none the less receive them socially and allow them the right 
to marry whites. 

It is necessary for us to understand this when we discuss 
what is one of the most important values of the colonies 
from the French point of view. In their eyes Africans and 
Asiatics are a military asset, and can be used in Europe 
in time of peace as well as in time of war to offset the dis- 
crepancy in population between the French and the Ger- 
mans. When an Englishman or an American expresses his 
misgiving for the future of France in relation to Germany 
on the score of population, the Frenchman answers calmly, 
"But we have our colonials." The government, in Janu- 
ary, 1922, increased the colonial quota from 200,000 to 300,- 
000, about fifty per cent, of the total mobilized strength of 
the French army. Conscription is in force in the colonies, 
as in France, but with this difference: the native levies, 
especially in west and central Africa, are being organized 
and developed with the idea of making them infantry divi- 
sions to be used by France in Europe and the Near East, 
while French conscripts are not ordered on foreign service 
except in time of war. 

Article XXII of the League covenant provides for peo- 
ples, "especially those of central Africa," who are 
governed under the mandate regime, freedom from "mili- 
tary training for other than police purposes and the de- 
fense of territory. ' ' Without waiting for League approval, 
the French government published, on March 25, 1921, a 



490 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

decree establishing a form of government for Kamerun and 
Togoland. This decree authorized the raising and training 
of conscript armies, as in other French African colonies. 
France interprets the expression "the defense of terri- 
tory" to mean the defense of French territory anywhere 
in the world. It is an old thesis, and not an unreasonable 
one, that the obligation of protection is mutual. A mother 
country defends her colonies, and it is their duty to help 
defend her, if for no other reason than that in her security 
and prosperity lie their security and prosperity. 

But the training of Africans for military service has 
other aspects than the one uppermost in French minds, 
which is, of course, drawing upon the vast reservoir of 
subject peoples to make up for disparity in population 
between the mother country and her great enemy. These 
aspects will readily be grasped by the reader. We have 
space to mention only two of them. If France counts on 
Africans to maintain her position in Europe, she will have 
to adopt a naval policy that aims at the control of the 
Mediterranean Sea. If by conscription the natives of 
Africa are trained to fight and are in possession of 
weapons, France and the other powers with colonies in 
Africa may find in the course of time that their subjects 
can not be longer exploited with impunity. They will de- 
mand self-government and the use of their labor and their 
natural wealth for the benefit of their own countiy. This 
is already happening in the older French colonies, in Al- 
geria, and in Tunisia. 

Much has been written since the World War of the great 
wealth of the French colonies, and of the economic advan- 
tages France will enjoy from their development. The value 
of the north African empire, for food-stuffs as well as for 
soldiers, was amply demonstrated during the war. And 
in the decade before the war the increase in prosperity of 
the colonies had been marvelous. From the figures of 1920 
and 1921 one sees that the colonies have not suffered by 



FRENCH COLONIAL PROBLEMS (1901-1922) 491 

the war, except in the cessation of works of public utility 
and of the development of concessions through lack of capi- 
tal and through the inability of French industry to furnish 
railway and other materials and machinery. Capital, how- 
ever, is now being found again, despite the serious situa- 
tion of French finances, and steel plants and machine works 
are again able to export to the colonies. 

The difficulties that confront France in the economic 
development of her colonial possessions are the lack of 
administrators and colonists and the maintenance of high 
protective tariffs for the benefit of the mother country. 

As compared with the British, the French have always 
suffered from poor material in civilian colonial adminis- 
trators. The French army has furnished splendid men to 
the colonies, but the general run of officials has been and 
still is decidedly second-rate. Social and economic condi- 
tions in France militate against recruiting high-grade men 
for service abroad. The upper classes do not have younger 
sons to find posts for, and life and opportunities at home 
are sufficiently attractive to prevent the type of man that 
enters the British colonial service from seeking a career 
in the French colonies. The same handicap hurts the 
French in finding good business men to cast in their for- 
tunes with the colonies. There is a livelihood for all ca- 
pable men in France better than they could earn abroad. 
So why exile? 

Spaniards, Italians, and Jews, and not Frenchmen, form 
the bulk of the European element in Algeria, Tunisia, and 
Morocco. Since the original decree bestowing citizenship 
on the Jews of Algeria, the French government has 
struggled with the problem of making the census figures 
show an increase in the French population. But France 
has no excess population, and there is little more emigra- 
tion to north Africa than to any other part of the world. 
The French stay at home. Climatic considerations would 
keep emigrants from northern and central France, if there 



492 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

were any, from choosing the northern coast of Africa for 
colonization. Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, however, are 
near Italy, and Italy has an excess population, a large part 
of which finds the countries on the opposite coast of the 
Mediterranean adapted to its climatic needs. If Spain 
begins to follow Italy in developing an excess population, 
and France remains stationary, it will be hard for France 
to justify — and also to profit by — her occupation of the 
major portion of Mediterranean lands suitable for Euro- 
pean colonization. The question is bound to arise, and, 
like that of permanently maintaining military superiority 
over Germany, how it will be answered depends, in the final 
analysis, upon the comparative fecundity of the French 
with neighboring European peoples. 

Great Britain has developed self-governing dominions in 
different parts of the world, and she herself has become a 
great industrial and maritime nation. British colonies help 
one another to greater prosperity by their number, their 
natural trade, and their positions on trade routes ; and all 
benefit by the remarkable development of commerce and 
communication between Great Britain, India, and the self- 
governing dominions. The British have been so far ahead 
of other nations in the organization of their commerce and 
in their control of the carrying trade that they could aif ord 
to let other nations do business with their colonies on equal 
terms. Only in recent years have there been preferential 
tariffs within the British Empire, and these have not been 
onerous, nor have they prevented a colony from excepting 
particular products where it was to its advantage to do so. 

The French conception of the relations between the colo- 
nies and the mother country is different. The colonies exist 
primarily for the benefit of France; hence heavy import 
and export duties imposed on the rest of the world are 
omitted in favor of French merchants, and French ship-N^ 
ping is everywhere given the preference. If France was 
in the position, as an industrial state, to sell to and buy 



FRENCH COLONIAL PROBLEMS (1901-1922) 493 

from all her colonies, and, as a maritime power, to give 
them excellent service, they might not suffer in comparison 
with the colonies of Great Britain. But, as matters stand, 
it is difficult to see how the French colonies are going to 
keep pace in prosperity with the British, unless they are 
allowed to trade on equal terms with the whole world and 
avail themselves of the world's shipping. 

The way that France has fenced oif her colonies against 
the rest of the world (and she is trying to do this now in 
Morocco also) brings up a burning issue in world politics. 
A Frenchman has stated it in these words: ''La question 
s'ouvre, de savoir si les autres peuples tolereront indefini- 
ment que nous privions la communaute humaine des res- 
sources preparees pour son bien-etre par la nature. ' ' ^ The 
French themselves realize that exploitation and monopoly 
can not continue indefinitely. Subject peoples will demand 
the right to trade on equal terms with other nations than 
France. The other nations, if they find that France is not 
using and developing the resources of her colonies, will 
demand the open door. Whether they get it — and here is 
the heart of the world politics of to-morrow — will depend 
upon which is stronger, the power barring the door or the 
power trying to open it. 

^ See TJ. Gohier in La Vieille-France, March 17, 1921. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

BEITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 

THE World War put the British Empire to severe test. 
Would the structure stand the triple strain of years 
of exhausting fighting in Europe, economic disorganization 
resulting from interruption of sea-borne trade and com- 
munications, and disaffection among subject peoples! 
More decisively than most observers expected, the answer 
was affirmative; an outstanding phenomenon of the war 
was the solidarity of the British Empire. From the very 
first days, the self-governing dominions and India contrib- 
uted men and money without stint; the troubles feared in 
Egypt did not materialize; and rebellions in south Africa 
and Ireland were short-lived. Facts seemed to prove that 
Cecil Rhodes was a poorer prophet than Otto von Bis- 
marck. Rhodes had said that Great Britain as an empire 
could not afford to fight Germany, while Bismarck had 
prophesied that Germany would not win a general Euro- 
pean war if Russia were on the other side. But was Rhodes 
wrong? The answer depends upon whether we fijid that 
Great Britain has come out of the war stronger and more 
prosperous as a world power than when she entered it. 

The greatest difliculty, in discussing British imperial 
problems in the light of the World War, lies in the correct 
appreciation of war events and war conditions in relation 
to the political situation confronting the empire at home 
and overseas. Speaking in the House of Commons on Feb- 
ruary 14, 1922, on conditions in India, Mr. Lloyd George 
reminded the members of Parliament that it was impossible 
to consider events and conditions since 1914 as solely re- 
sponsible for the grave crisis confronting British rule in 

494 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922/ 495 

India. He said that as far back as 1906 Lord Morley kept 
calling the attention of the government to the serious 
unrest in India. The general cause was the contact of 
Asia with Western education, and the particular cause was 
the success of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War. The 
World War simply gave the agitators new arguments and 
made the people more ready to listen and to be influenced 
by agitation than before. This caution we must bear in 
mind in discussing the various problems of the British 
Empire. In the Near East and in the Far East, as in 
India, what has happened since 1914 is the development of 
resistance against European overlordship and exploitation, 
which received its first great impulsion from the success 
of Japan in blocking the further extension of European 
eminent domain in Asia. The troubles in Ireland, Egypt, 
and South Africa go back to the nineteenth century. The 
burning question of adjusting, on a basis satisfactory to 
the last, the political and economic relations between 
Great Britain and her self-governing dominions has been 
an issue ever since the Boer War. 

Speaking broadly, the tie that binds the British Empire 
is that of interest. And it is the same tie, whether, in the 
case of the self-governing dominions, one calls it maternal 
or filial affection, or, in the case of some of the colonies, 
conscious dependence, or, in the case of subject peoples held 
against their will, bearing the white man's burden. The 
British Empire grew to its present dimensions because it 
paid the English to have overseas possessions. For the 
benefit of the industries and commerce of the United King- 
dom, the British invaded and conquered large parts of 
Africa and Asia and annexed islands all over the world. 
In regions of the temperate zone, where white settlement 
was possible, the mother country was compelled to grant 
the colonists self-government, and relations were gradually 
adjusted until they rested upon mutual interests. In all 
other parts of the empire the British ruled by force and 



496 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

for the benefit of the United Kingdom, which furnished the 
force and paid the bills. In the final analysis, however, the 
relations between Great Britain and her self-governing 
dominions will be governed by the element of mutual ad- 
vantage in the association, and between Great Britain and 
her subject peoples the relations will remain as they are 
if the British continue to believe that it pays to hold these 
people in subjection and if they continue to have the money 
and man power to do so. 
-.^ At the time the revolt of the American colonies was 

brewing, the British government, in order to prevent the 
spread of the movement to Canada, by the Quebec Act of 
1774, granted the recently acquired French of Quebec a 
large measure of autonomy. Later Canada, which was be- 
coming preponderantly an English-speaking country neigh- 
boring on the United States and developing in the same 
way as the United States, could never have been kept 
within the British Empire on any other basis than that of 
autonomous, representative institutions. This furnished 
the example for Australia and New Zealand when they 
increased in wealth and population sufficiently to stand 
upon their own feet. As the alternative to constant re- 
bellion, very costly to put down. South Africa was made a 
self-governing dominion within the decade after the Boer 
War. Following upon five years of armed resistance to 
British authority, Ireland (except Ulster) was given do- 
minion status in January, 1922, under the name of the 
Irish Free State. With the exception of Canada, the self- 
governing dominions have come into existence in the twen- 
tieth century : Australia, 1901 ; New Zealand, 1907 ; South 
Africa, 1910; and Ireland, 1922. 

Following the example of Canada, all of the self-govern- 
ing dominions have shown, from the beginning of their 
quasi-independent existence, the determination to place 
their own interests ahead of those of the mother country, 
and to demand a share in shaping imperial policies and 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 497 

enjoying imperial privileges if they were to be expected to 
assume imperial responsibilities. This has caused them to 
question and deny the original credo of world politics, i. e., 
that the extra-European world existed for the benefit of 
Europe. At the time of the Boer War, Sir Wilfrid Laurier 
answered the British government's appeal for a contribu- 
tion in money and troops in the following terse sentence: 
*' Canada does not intend to be drawn into the vortex of 
European militarism." Later the Canadian government 
decided that, if Canada were to be called upon to contribute 
to the support of the imperial navy, the ships should be 
used in Canadian waters, be manned by Canadian officers, 
and fly the Canadian flag. These demands were afterwards 
modified, but have since been renewed. Another signifi- 
cant illustration of Canada's feeling of separateness is the 
desire intimated to the British government by the Ottawa 
government that British titles and honors be not conferred 
upon Canadians.^ A strong sentiment showed itself in 
Canada and Australia in favor of Irish aspirations. Can- 
ada and the other dominions have established their claim 
to complete tariff autonomy, but, because of trade advan- 
tages, are willing to grant imperial preference in their 
tariff schedules. 

At the outbreak of the war between Great Britain and 
Germany, the self-governing dominions did not hesitate to 
throw in their lot immediately with the mother country. 
The trade and naval menace of the German Empire, and 
moral indignation against Germany, were factors that 
worked as strongly in the dominions as in England. In 
addition. South Africa had been feeling keenly the develop- 
ment of the neighboring German colonies in Africa, and 

* A special committee of the Canadian House of Commons was appointed 
in April, 1919, to consider the question of titles in Canada, and it was unani- 
mously recommended that hereditary titles should cease upon the death of the 
present holders, and, by a large majority, that no further titles, knight- 
hoods, and minor orders should be bestowed by the British crown upon 
Canadian citizens. These recommendations were subsequently ratified by 
Parliament. 



498 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Australia and New Zealand of German colonial expansion 
in the Pacific. But the participation of the dominions in 
the war, involving the raising and sending of armies to 
Europe and heavy expenditures, naturally led them to de- 
mand representation in the imperial w^ar cabinet, and from 
this to separate delegates at the peace conference and to 
membership in the League of Nations the steps were logi- 
cal. The heads of the governments of the dominions im- 
pressed upon London the patent fact that they must have 
some say in the conduct of the war and the shaping of the 
policies to be adopted when peace was made. So far as 
the conduct of the war, in its diplomatic as well as its 
military phases, was concerned, these demands proved to 
be impracticable. For the British cabinet derives its 
authority from a parliament representing the people of the 
United Kingdom. 

At a conference of premiers in London, in 1907, the 
virtual independence of the dominions and their equality 
with the United Kingdom had already been recognized by 
the adoption of the principle that ' ' thg_Ci:pwii_is the su- 
preme executive in the United Kingdom and in all the 
^,ominions, but it acts on the advice of different ministries 
within different constitutional limits. ' ' ^ But this did not 
solve the problem of the participation of the dominions in 
all-important matters of common imperial concern. How 
could the dominions be given an adequate voice in foreign 
policy and in the conduct of foreign relations! The par- 
ticipation of the dominions in the peace conference and 
their separate membership in the League of Nations em- 
phasized their sovereign status. But it is difficult to see 
how the dominions can expect to have a voice in British 
foreign policy under the present system. They can advise 
and warn, as they did in 1921 in the matter of the Anglo- 
Japanese alliance. This right of advising the British pre- 

^See C. P. Hallinan's letter from London in the New Republic, February 8, 
1922. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 499 

mier, however, does not give the dominions a share in con- 
ducting the activities of the Foreign Office, the War Office, 
and the Colonial Office, whose heads are responsible only 
to a parliament elected by the people of England and 
Scotland. At the present time England and Scotland have 
a population much larger than that of the self-governing 
dominions combined, even when we exclude Ireland from 
Great Britain and put her population with that of the do- 
minions. But the time is coming when the dominions will 
outnumber the mother country. 

As far as the self-governing dominions are concerned, 
the danger to the solidarity of the British Empire is in 
the inevitable divergency of interests that will arise from 
divergent political and economic conditions, and from the 
desire of the dominions, if they are to assume the burden 
of empire, to share in the privileges of empire. These dan- 
gers have already appeared. Canadians, Australians, and 
New Zealanders looked upon the Anglo-Japanese alliance, 
which was advantageous to British political and trade in- 
terests in the Far East, as exceedingly disadvantageous to 
their interests. If the situation in India and China should 
make wise, from the point of view of the United Kingdom 's 
interests, a new understanding in the future between Great 
Britain and Japan, what would be the attitude of the Brit- 
ish dominions that feel the expansion of Japan to be a 
menace to their security? Are Hong-Kong and India more 
important to Great Britain than the maintenance of the 
only slightly profitable political tie with Australia, New 
Zealand, and Canada? 

At the peace conference South Africa, Australia, and 
New Zealand demanded their share of the German colonies. 
If India, Egypt, and other countries continue to be held 
in subjection to Great Britain, with the aid of self-govern- 
ing dominions, it is reasonable that the dominion premiers 
will be demanding a share of the good jobs and that do- 
minion trade interests be considered in the exploitation of 



500 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

these countries. On the other hand, the sponsorship by 
the British government of the policy of Australia and New 
Zealand, to exclude Asiatics from settlement in vast regions 
that they themselves can not colonize or develop, embar- 
rasses the British in India and imperils future relations 
with. Japan. ^ 

The self-governing dominions are virtually lost to Great 
Britain except in a sentimental way. In time of war they 
are not likely again to prove themselves a precious asset, 
if their own interests are not involved. They are not of 
as much benefit to the industries and commerce of Great 
Britain as the British tax-payer might in justice hope for. 
The dominions exact a quid pro quo, and there is a question 
in the Englishman's mind as to whether they do not get 
more than they give. Canada largely made her own way. 
But Australia and New Zealand were liabilities to the 
British tax-payer for several decades, while the people of 
the United Kingdom are saddled with a heavy debt owing 
to their activities in making possible the Union of South 
Africa. The United Kingdom will never get a return upon 
the South African investment. It may be true that Ireland 
was held in subjection because of her unfortunate geo- 
graphical position and for economic reasons. But for a 
•^ hundred years the English paid dearly for the doubtful 
privilege of ruling Ireland. No European nation has bene- 
fited from the exploitation, or rather attempt at exploita- 
tion, of peoples of European stock. The relation of master 
and servant between Europeans and Asiatics and Africans, 
on the contrary, has generally proved so profitable, up to 
the war of 1914, that the European nations were mll- 
ing to risk wars with one another in order to enjoy that 
privilege. 

At the Paris conference, and again at the Washington 
conference, India was represented by separate delegates in 
the same way as the self-governing dominions, and India 

^ See p. 516, especially the foot-note, and p. 517. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 501 

has been given a seat in the League of Nations, The Indian 
members, however, are not elected by the people, but are 
simply representatives of the British military government 
which rules the country. The British crown is represented 
in India by a viceroy, who, with the secretary of state for 
India, a member of the British cabinet, has virtually un- 
limited power. The various parliamentary statutes were 
consolidated in the Government of India Act, passed in 
1915, and amended in 1916 and 1919. The last amendment 
makes possible the appointment of a high commissioner 
for India in London, as in the case of the self-governing 
dominions. The nationalist movement in India had al- 
ready reached formidable proportions before the outbreak 
of the war. But since 1919 it has become a movement of 
the masses. The Indians demand, at the least, self-govern- 
ment with full dominion status. 

The composite character of the vast country under the 
control of the government of India, which contains nearly 
one fifth of the human race, of different religions and cus- 
toms, is advanced as an argument against the possibility 
of applying the principle of self-determination to India. 
We are reminded that India is not a nation, that hundreds 
of millions are in the deepest ignorance, and that a large 
number of native rulers still control the interior of the pen- 
insula, holding virtually absolute sway over seventy 
milHons, The Mohammedan element, numbering more than 
sixty millions, descended from medieval conquerors, is kept 
from oppressing the Hindu majority, and the native rulers 
from fighting one another, only by the presence of the 
British government. The almost superhuman obstacles to 
the establishment of full responsible government in India 
are self-evident. If the nationalist movement signified 
only the unwise and impracticable political aspirations of 
groups of enthusiasts in a hopelessly divided country, it 
would be no more than an interesting internal problem of 
a colonial power in its dealings with subject peoples. But 



502 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

India is in a very real sense the corner-stone of the British 
Empire, and how Great Britain faces the unrest in India 
and what will be the outcome are questions of vital impor- 
tance in world politics. 

When we consider that all the powers have concentrated 
their foreign policies upon and have been willing to fight 
wars for the markets and concessions and mineral wealth 
of the Chinese and Ottoman empires, and have made great 
sacrifices for small gains, we realize what it means to Great 
Britain to have undisputed control, from the international 
point of view, of the destinies of India and the surrounding 
countries and islands. It is the richest colonial plum that 
the world has ever known. One fourth of the revenues of 
India go to England for "home charges," and more than 
two thirds are spent in the maintenance of a military estab- 
lishment that has been used to extend the British Empire 
elsewhere in Asia and in Africa and to defend Great 
Britain's interests on the battle-fields of France and at 
Gallipoli. 

As a market and place for capital investment, India has 
been worth to Groat Britain all her other colonies put to- 
gether. Can England afford to allow any of the real power 
in Indian affairs to pass out of the hands of British mili- 
tary and civilian ofl&cials ? Would not this mean the end of 
European exploitation in Asia and of the economic impe- 
rialism upon which the prosperity of Great Britain is be- 
lieved by the imperialists to rest! 

British public opinion has always been divided upon the 
questions of whether suppression of the liberties of other 
peoples is justifiable and whether it actually pays to con- 
quer peoples and hold them against their will. But India 
has seemed so unmistakably a worth-while prize and has 
furnished so comfortable a living for a host of Britishers 
that successive generations. Conservative and Liberal, have 
supported the government's Indian policy even when there 
were misgivings over the too logical house-that-Jack-built 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 503 

policy of acquiring the approaches to India by land and 

isea. For India's sake Siam, China, Persia, and Egypt were 
despoiled, Tibet was invaded, three wars were fought with 
I Afghanistan, Russia and France were first antagonized and 
I then concihated, and the doctrine of the integrity of the 
I Ottoman Empire was first upheld and then violated. 
j Enough of the colonial ventures were made to pay and 
I proved a credit to the Anglo-Saxon empire-building in- 
l stinct to offset those that did not pay and that dimmed 
' English prestige and honor. 

From 1906 to 1916 the nationalist movement in India, 
though troublesome, was not serious, and it did not tax the 
ability and the wits of the Indian government. Beginning 
with 1916, the agitation for self-government became serious 
because of the fact that German diplomacy had forced 
Great Britain into the position of fighting Islam. When 
the Mohammedans of India, disaffected because of British 
participation in a coalition that threatened to complete the 
political downfall of Mohammedan countries, joined the 
Hindus in the movement for autonomy, British officials in 
India began to realize the gravity of the situation. Eco- 
nomic and political concessions were made, and when these 
did not satisfy, repressive measures were taken. Along 
with the effort to maintain unimpaired British authority, 
however, the Englishmen at the head of Indian affairs did 
their best to remedy some of the injustices that were being 
seized upon by agitators to move the Mohammedan and 
Hindu masses. These men warned the British government 
that peace terms as favorable as possible had to be accorded 
to Turkey; that the demands of Lancashire for a tariff on 
cotton goods prejudicial to the interests of India had to 
be rejected ; ^ that budget estimates should be revised to 

^When the government of India raised the duty on cotton goods from 7l^ 
per cent, to 11 per cent., the Lancashire cotton industry, manufacturers and 
workers_ together,^ sent a deputation to Secretary Montagu to protest. The 
deputation explained that Lancashire interests were superior to Indian 
interests, and they demanded the annulment of the increase. Supporting 
this position, the Morning Post said editorially: "The British Empire 



504 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

spend less on the army and more on education ;'^ that a 
high commissioner resident in London, instead of a mem- 
ber of the British cabinet, should safeguard the interests of 
India in contracts, as in the case of the dominions and 
colonies ; and that Indians should be allowed to enter freely 
and colonize in parts of Australia and Africa. 

In part the good advice was followed, but every effort to 
take into account Indian public opinion involved offending 
other imperial interests. Mr. Lloyd George frankly avowed 
on several occasions that the varied interests of the British 
Empire had to be compromised, as it was impossible to 
satisfy some without dissatisfying others, and that this 
was particularly true in the case of certain demands of 
his Majesty's Indian subjects, which seemed legitimate to 
the British government, but which were rejected by British 
manufacturers and industrial workers and by public opin- 
ion in the self-governing dominions and colonies. 

^Yhen, before the end of 1921, it was realized that the 
Ghandi movement for passive civil disobedience, which in- 
volved boycotting English cotton goods and refusing to 
pay taxes, was spreading alarmingly, in the face of the 
visit of the Prince of Wales, the British government an- 
nounced its intention of taking every measure necessary to 
uphold the authority of the British crown. It is realized, 
however, that repression Avill fail, and that the only way to 
counteract and discredit the Ghandi movement is for the 
government of India to convince the people that they are 

in India was founded for the good of the British trade. . . . We do not 
believe in indulging in beautiful ideals at the expense of some millions of 
our fellow Englishmen. ' ' 

^ On May 8, 1921, a writer in the Jfanpoon Mail said: "To-day, after one 
hundred and fifty years of British rule, India, instead of gaining education- 
ally, has been forced to a far lower level than she occupied in the past. 
There are no educational facilities whatever in four out of every five villages; 
only ten men in a hundred and one woman in a hundred and fifty can read and 
write. The excuse given by the British government is lack of funds. . . . 
The government schools have as their object the creation of a small class 
upon Avhich the government can draw for its supply of efficient, submissive 
minor employees. The Indian student is taught everything Western and in 
particular everything English, and exclusively in the English language. No 
chance is lost to impress upon him the superiority of the European." 



BKITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 505 

well off and that they are being justly treated under British 
rule. The agitation for full self-government will subside 
only when the Mohammedans are placated by a drastic 
revision of the treaty of Sevres ^ ; when Indian tariffs are 
adjusted in the interest of India and not of Great Britain ; 
and when the Indian people, if forced to bear their share 
of the burden of defending and maintaining the British 
Empire, will receive in return privileges within the empire 
enjoyed by British subjects of European origin. 

As in India, the nationalist agitation in Egypt was con- 
fined to a small class until the end of the World War. 
Prom 1883 to 1914 the occupation of Egypt was proclaimed 
by British statesmen to be temporary, and the outward 
forms of Ottoman suzerainty and khedival authority were 
preserved. To the other powers, as well as to the sultan 
of Turkey and to the Egyptian people, the prime ministers 
and foreign secretaries of Queen Victoria gave solemn 
pledges to preserve the independence of Egypt and to ter- 
minate the occupation. When Turkey declared war against 
Great Britain, the British government announced that 
Egypt was no longer a part of the Ottoman Empire, and 
proclaimed the country a British protectorate for the dura- 
tion of the war. The khedive was deposed and his uncle 
made sultan. To the new sultan King George sent a letter 
explaining that the protectorate was simply a war measure, 
and that the British government intended to preserve the 
independence and integrity of Egypt. 

The Egyptians, despite their religious faith, contributed 
materially to the campaign against Turkey, and made pos- 
sible, together with the Arabs of the Hedjaz, the British 
conquest of Palestine. But after the armistice the pro- 

^ The sensational recommendation of the government of India in behalf of 
the Turks, published without the consent of the British cabinet by Secretary 
Montagu, gives weight to this opinion. Lloyd George asked for Montagu's 
resignation, which was promptly given. But Mr. Montagu on February 15, 
1922, made a vigorous defense in the House of Commons, claiming that the 
publication of the despatch from the government of India urging favorable 
action on the claims of the Angora Turks was of vital importance to the 
strengthening of the tottering British rule in India. 



606 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tectorate was not abolished, and when the Egyptians 
elected a delegation to go to the peace conference at Paris, 
its principal members were arrested by the British mili- 
tary authorities and deported to Malta. An uprising 
followed in Egypt, which was ruthlessly suppressed. The 
British, however, were unable to send enough troops to 
pacify the country, and were therefore compelled to re- 
lease the Egyptian delegation and allow it to proceed to 
Paris. But no attention was paid to it there, and the 
British succeeded in inserting recognition of their protec- 
torate over Egypt in the treaty of Versailles. 

Confronted with troubles in Ireland, India, and Mesopo- 
tamia that taxed its military resources, the British govern- 
ment was not in a position to enforce acceptance of the 
protectorate beyond the carrying distance of the rifles of 
its garrisons. Lord Milner was sent out at the head of a 
commission to appraise the strength of the nationalist sen- 
timent. The result was a recommendation that the protec- 
torate be withdrawn and a treaty negotiated with the 
Egyptians, acknowledging their independence, and reserv- 
ing only the right to garrison the Suez Canal, to control 
foreign relations, and to safeguard the interests of for- 
eigners in Egypt. Although this program was opposed by 
the extreme nationalists, there was a reasonable chance of 
its adoption. The British Foreign Office, however, insisted 
upon retaining a certain number of officials in Egyptian 
government service and upon maintaining garrisons in 
Cairo and other interior cities and using Alexandria as a 
naval base. A fresh uprising occurred, and a great nation- 
alist leader, Zaglul Pasha, whose deportation to Malta in 
1919 had been the origin of the troubles, was arrested and 
sent to Ceylon, where he was imprisoned. 

The anomalous situation in Egypt is one of the most 
serious of British imperial problems. It has revealed the 
British military weakness and also the growing impatience 
of sober-thinking Englishmen at the thought of bearing the 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 507 

cost and running the risks of a military campaign merely 
to satisfy the extreme policies of the imperialists. Pro- 
tecting imperial communications through the canal was the 
justification for going to Egypt in the first place. If that 
privilege be granted in the treaty, why should the govern- 
ment, refusing the advice and warning of Lord Milner, in- 
sist upon retaining control of the internal affairs of the 
country? The commercial advantages of controlling Egypt 
and the opportunity of putting several thousand men on 
the Egyptian pay-roll at good salaries make the British 
occupation worth something. But the common people are 
beginning to ask whether the game is worth the candle, i. e., 
whether in actual pounds and pence the people of the 
United Kingdom get out of holding in subjection a country 
like Egypt a fair return on the money and human lives 
invested in the enterprise.^ 

In 1921 a great clamor was raised in the British Parlia- 
ment and press over the expense and the doubtful value of 
the conquest of Mesopotamia. It leaked out that, despite 
the advantages of airplane scouting and punitive expedi- 
tions, the British army had signally failed to pacify and 
extend its administrative control over the Mesopotamian 
Arabs, as the French had done over the Syrians. Between 
the armistice and August, 1920, the British government 
spent $500,000,000, and for 1921 the budget asked $300,000,- 
000 for Mesopotamia and $35,000,000 for Palestine. Ques- 
tioned in Parliament, Mr. Winston Churchill, the new colo- 
nial secretary, confessed that there was doubt as to the 
existence of valuable oil-fields in Mesopotamia, and that 
the hundred thousand British troops in the mandated ter- 
ritory were insufficient to keep the Arabs in order. And 
yet the United States had been protesting against the 

* Following the example of granting freedom to Ireland, since these lines 
were written the British government has issued a proclamation announcing 
to the world that the king has made Egypt a free state, Great Britain 
retaining only control of the Suez Canal and the right to protect Egypt 
against any foreign aggression. Sultan Fuad has changed his title to melek 
(king), and Zaglul Pasha is coming back from Ceylon. 



508 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

possibility of not having a share in the region's exploita- 
tion. The British tax-payer was called upon to pay for 
asserting a title that both the natives and a friendly power 
contested. Mr. Churchill announced that the number of 
troops in Mesopotamia was being reduced and that the 
cabinet was in favor of withdrawal from Mesopotamia. 
''If we hold the Persian Gulf and Basra," said Mr. 
Churchill, 'Sve have the key of the Middle East." 

In 1921 the British set up Emir Feisal as king of Irak 
(Mesopotamia) at Bagdad, and Emir Abdullah, his brother, 
as king of Trans-Jordania. These two, sons of King Hus- 
sein of the Hedjaz, make no secret of the fact that they 
intend to drive the French from Syria, smash Zionism in 
Palestine, and create a great Arab kingdom. Many of the 
English military and civilian officials in Egypt and the 
mandated territories sympathize with the Arabs, and this 
threatens to estrange the British and French in the Near 
East. As far as a survey of the press and personal letters 
from friends in the Near East are an indication of the 
attitude of British officialdom towards the mandates in- 
trusted to Great Britain out of territories taken from Tur- 
key, the opinion seems to be, "Let us get out!" As the 
London Times correspondent says; ''As for oil, I learn on 
good authority that the opinion of the experts is that it 
will be three years before it is known whether there is suf- 
ficient to justify the projected pipe-line to Haifa. And in 
the meantime the British cabinet actually proposes to spend 
£6,000,000 [$30,000,000] on repairing its depreciated assets 
in Mesopotamia's railways. So long as we stay, there mil 
ever be a fresh reason for staying, and a fresh reason for 
spending. Let us arise and go." 

In August, 1919, it was announced that Persia had signed 
a treaty with Great Britain, consenting to a virtual protec- 
torate. The former Russian sphere of influence was to be 
taken over by the British. This treaty was secured by 
bribery and intimidation, and was repudiated by the Per- 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 509 

sians as soon as they were able to assemble a parliament. 
In the meantime, Great Britain had been forced to with- 
draw from the Caucasus, which she had occupied after the 
Turkish armistice, and to sign a treaty with Afghanistan, 
renouncing her former privilege of controlling foreign rela- 
tions of the Kabul government, and recognizing the com- 
plete independence and equality of Afghanistan. On the 
other side of Persia, the British were suffering reverses in 
an attempt to quell a revolt in Mesopotamia. It was time 
to throw ballast overboard. Lord Curzon, in November, 
1920, admitted in the House of Lords that the British 
Empire could not go on indefinitely increasing its respon- 
sibility, and that Persia happened to be the place where 
the halt must be called. Persia was evacuated. The bulk 
of the British forces in Mesopotamia were withdrawn to 
Basra, near the Persian Gulf. The collapse of the counter- 
revolutionary movements in southern Russia led to with- 
drawal from the Caucasus. The states of the Caucasus and 
Armenia became Bolshevist, while Persia and Afghanistan 
signed treaties with soviet Russia. The Anglo-Afghan 
treaty, signed at Kabul on November 22, 1921, guaranteed 
passage of munitions to Afghanistan through India, a stip- 
ulation that, indirectly at least, violated the arms and am- 
munition protocol signed at St. Germain on September 10, 
1919.1 

In the Near East the abandonment of internal adminis- 
trative control over Egypt and the mandated territories of 
the former Ottoman Empire would entail a similar aban- 
donment on the part of France. It would be impossible for 
the French to maintain themselves by military means in 
Syria if the British decided to abide by the terms of article 
XXII of the covenant of the League of Nations, and gave 

* Article VI, section 3, stipulates "the eastern frontier of Persia in the 
Gulf of Oman." But gun-running into Afghanistan was aimed at. It is 
manifestly unfair to let the Afghans receive arms via India, which they will 
sell to the Persians with two extra commissions, the British agent's and the 
Afghan 's. 



510 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Palestine a government in accordance witli the wishes of 
the inhabitants. In fact, if the British adopt the pohcy of 
friendly cooperation with Turks, Arabs, and Afghans in 
order to propitiate the Mohammedans of India, the French 
will have to withdraw from Syria and the Italians and 
Greeks from Asia Minor. Constantinople will remain 
Turkish and the Ottoman Empire will have a new lease 
of life. 

In the Far East British power and commercial influence 
has been fostered since the Boxer rebellion by an alliance 
with Japan, twice renewed,^ and by agreements with Eussia 
and France. The unforeseen situation arising in China 
from the radical change of government in Russia in 1917 
seemed to dictate a fuller understanding with Japan, who 
was falling heir to the inheritance of both Germany and 
Eussia. The Foreign Office, backed by a large section of 
public opinion, felt that the Anglo-Japanese alliance should 
be renewed and strengthened in 1921. Had it not been for 
the intervention of the self-governing dominions and the 
disinclination to alienate American sympathy, Japan and 
Great Britain, in conjunction with France, would have ef- 
fected a virtual partition of China. The self-governing 
dominions, however, had put a bar on Japanese immigra- 
tion as well as Indian immigration, even to the new man- 
dated territories, thus raising a delicate problem for Brit- 
ish diplomacy in connection with Japan, as with India. 
Because London was a party, willy-nilly, to Asiatic exclu- 
sion in vast portions of the British Empire, the reasonable 
gentlemen in Downing Street were ready to counteract 
what was an affront to Japan and an injury to her com- 
mercial and shipping interests by agreeing to give Japan a 
free hand in Siberia, Mongolia, and the former Eussian 
and German spheres in China. The British commercial 

* This alliance terminated automatically with the exchange of ratifications 
of the four-power treaty negotiated at the Washington conference. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 511 

interests had everything to gain by a compromise with 
Japan. 

The dominions, however, made it clear that the growing 
power of Japan was a menace, and that their policy was 
that the British Empire should seek an understanding with 
the United States. Canada was more specific, and de- 
clared that the American policy in regard to Japanese ex- 
pansion on the mainland of Asia and the open door was 
what she must adopt for her own security and prosperity. 
The treaties agreed upon in the Washington conference, 
especially the four-power treaty, which superseded the 
Anglo-Japanese treaty, were the result of the influence of 
the dominions in British foreign policy. 

The World War has made the United States and Japan 
trade and shipping rivals of Great Britain. Competition in 
naval building was stopped for ten years by the Washing- 
ton conference, but the economic war is only beginning. 
The British have always imported more than they have 
exported, because the United Kingdom can not raise either 
its food-stuffs or its raw materials. The difference was 
made up in shipping and banking profits, interest on in- 
vestments abroad, and the pensions and portions of sala- 
ries paid by subject races for the services of British admin- 
istrators and soldiers. Self-government naturally lessened 
the money coming in for salaries and pensions; a part of 
the banking business has been lost to New York; and the 
surplus profits invested in the countries with which the 
United Kingdom trades have not kept pace with the in- 
creased volume of trade. In the Far East the Japanese 
have been cutting into the carrying trade, and the American 
Shipping Board has become, with official government 
backing, a keen competitor in trans-Atlantic and South 
American freight and passenger business. There is less 
transshipping and brokerage in British ports, and now 
Queenstown looms up as a rival of Liverpool and South- 



512 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

ampton. Marine insurance, like international banking, has 
partly gone to New York. How to mn back the lion's share 
in the world's carrying trade and prevent competitors from 
bidding against them is a problem the British must face 
and solve. For the profits of ocean carriers are neededrA" 
more than ever before to make up the adverse balance in 
foreign trade. 

Important as the markets of the dominions, India, other 
colonies, the Near East, and the Far East were to British 
trade, they could not many years longer make up for loss of 
central and eastern European markets. Trading with Rus- 
sia and the reestablishment of normal conditions in Ger- 
many are imperative duties of British foreign policy. In 
1921 more than two million workers were unemployed in 
the United Kingdom. Germany was the United Kingdom's 
best single customer in the years immediately preceding 
the World War, buying slightly more than the United 
States and as much as Australia and Canada combined. Of 
the products of certain important industries, Germany 
bought, either for herself or for redistribution, 40 per cent, 
of the British output, and Germany was, next to the United 
Kingdom, the best customer of the British Empire as a 
whole in some raw materials and food-stuffs. 

Great Britain has come out of the war victor, with in- 
creased prestige and territories; but the cost to her tax- 
payers mounts up to 33 1/3 per cent, of their earnings in ^^ 
income tax alone. The question will arise as to whether 
the successful pursuit of a world policy is worth while. 
It is a question that can not be answered now. But, for 
the first time since steam power and transportation caused 
the rise of world powers, we have the opportunity of find- 
ing out whether a populous and highly industrialized Euro- 
pean state can feed its population and make both ends 
meet without colonies, without any share in world politics, 
without special privileges or concessions am'^vhere in the 
world, and without merchant shipping protected by a huge 



BRITISH IMPERIAL PROBLEMS (1903-1922) 513 

navy. The treaty of Versailles has given the world the 
opportunity to test the value of a Weltpolitik. If Germany 
can subsist, and pay any part of her indemnities, without 
all the paraphernalia of economic imperialism, is it neces- 
sary for other industrial powers to have great navies and 
to maintain by armies the overlordship of non-European 
races, paying heavily in human life and treasure, and con- 
stantly incurring the risk of coming to blows with other 
powers seeking the same ends by the same means? 



CHAPTEE XLV 

THE FOEEIGN POLICY OF POST-BELLUM JAPAN (1919-1922) 

IN answer to an inquiry from the secretariat of the 
League of Nations, a statistics committee reported that 
the wealth of Japan at the end of 1921 was 86,077,000,000 
yen. The estimate for 1913 was 32,043,000,000 yen. These 
figures indicate that in less than a decade the national 
wealth of Japan has almost tripled. When we look into 
the categories of estimated valuations, we find that lands 
are considered to be worth more to-day than the total na- 
tional wealth of 1913, but that this increase in value is not 
proportionately as great as that of buildings and of marine, 
harbor, and river property. The most notable increase is 
in industrial machinery. The population of Japan proper 
increased 4,000,000 during the war, and it is estimated 
that in 1922 there are more than 60,000,000 Japanese living 
in an area not much larger than that of Great Britain, 
whose population is one fourth less. 

During the half -century before the "World War British 
publicists and economists of the imperialistic school suc- 
ceeded in convincing the British people that existence, let 
alone prosperity, was dependent upon an aggressive colo- 
nial policy. This was the justification of heavy taxation, 
military burdens, wars of aggression against Africans and 
Asiatics, and the denial to many weaker peoples of the 
right to enjoy the Englishman's own most precious boon 
— political liberty. Because the Japanese, omng to increase 
in population and multiplication of industries, began 
to feel in their national consciousness the same necessity 
for expansion that the British have long felt, one is justi- 

514 



FOREIGN POLICY OF POST-BELLUM JAPAN 515 

fied in considering the post-bellum foreign policy of the 
Japanese in the light of how we should feel were we in their 
place. Like the Germans, the Japanese have taken as their 
teacher Rudyard Kipling, and their motive for wanting 
overseas possessions, a large merchant marine, and a navy 
to protect that marine is admirably expressed in Kipling 's 
lines : 

*'0h, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers, 
With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?" 

''We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter. 
Your beef, pork, and mutton, eggs, apples, and cheese." 

"And where will you fetch it from, all you Big Steamers, 
And where shall I write you when you are away?" 

"We fetch it from Melbourne, Quebec, and Vancouver — 
Address us at Hobart, Hong-Kong, and Bombay." 

"But if anything happened to all you Big Steamers, 
And suppose you were wrecked up and down the salt 
sea?" 

"Then you 'd have no coffee or bacon for breakfast. 
And you 'd have no muffins or toast for your tea. ' ' 

"Then what can I do for you, all you Big Steamers, 
Oh, what can I do for your comfort and good?" 

"Send out your big war-ships to watch your big waters, 
That no one may stop us from bringing you food. 

' ' For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble, 
The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve, 

They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers — 
And if any one hinders our coming you '11 starve ! ' ' 

Next to Belgium and Holland, Japan is the most densely 
populated country in the world. In comparison with the 
European world powers, Japan has 396 persons per square 
mile against England's 370, Germany's 310, Italy's 306, 
and France 's 193. The population of the United States and 
China is far below 100 per square mile. When we study 



516 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

these figures, we must take into consideration the fact that 
the European peoples are able to overflow to their own 
colonies or the colonies of others, and — until very recently, 
at least — have been freely admitted to the United States. 
The habitable parts of the globe, capable of an almost 
indefinite development of resources, are the heritage of 
the white races. From the United States, Canada, 
Australasia, and South Africa the Japanese, like other 
Asiatics, are barred.^ 

It is impossible to deal with the problem of Japan's inter- 
national relations without these facts in mind. Whatever 
may be our professions of friendship for the Japanese 
government and the Japanese people and their professions 
of friendship for us, whatever may be the agreements 
signed at Washington to make war impossible, we must 
realize the truth of what President Wilson said in his war 
message, on April 2, 1917: ^'Only a peace between equals 
can last, only a peace the very principle of which is equality 
and a common participation in a common benefit. ' ' When 
Europe and America accepted Japan as a world power, on 
a footing of equality in international conferences, they did 
so, not of their own initiative and because of good- will, but 
as a result of Japan's astonishing ability to use the means 
of compulsion that they themselves had employed in be- 
coming world powers. But the white race did not accept, 
and does not yet propose to accept, the Japanese people 
on a footing of equality. 

* Australia, with a greater area than the United States, has scarcely more 
than 5,000,000 inhabitants, five sixths of whom live in the southeastern tip 
of the continent. And yet the Australian premier said recently that the 
continent could support 100,000,000 white people in their accustomed standard 
of living, and in this opinion Lord Northcliffe, then visiting Australia, con- 
curred. Now Zealand and South Africa havo each scarcely more than a mil- 
lion white population, and the possibilities of development are vast. And 
yet, these three dominions, clamoring for immigrants and sorely needing 
labor, exclude Asiatics. This is the greatest problem in world politics to- 
day. By the most generous calculation of increase, Europe, if she directed 
all her immigration towards these dominions, could scarcely fill their needs 
for a hundred years. It is a case, as the Australian premier said, of safe- 
guarding the patrimony of our great-grandchildren. Will Japan and India 
wait a hundred vears? 



THE 
STEPPING STONES 

FROM 
ASIA TO AUSTRALIA 




FOREIGN POLICY OF POST-BELLUM JAPAN 517 

Before 1914 there was no other way for Japan than 
tacitly to acknowledge the exclusion of her people from as 
yet uncolonized and undeveloped parts of the earth's sur- 
face and from a share in the full colonization and develop- 
ment of other parts. Japan was too weak to defy the 
European powers and the United States ; and she had the 
misfortune of arousing against herself the resentment of 
her neighbors of her own race, because her first advances in 
imperialism had to be directed against them. But a pro- 
found change occurred in international politics between 
1914 and 1919, culminating in the folly of the treaty of 
Versailles and the Entente policy towards Russia. Instead 
of standing together, the white peoples came to blows over 
their monopoly, and ended by fighting one another. The 
vanquished were excluded, like the Asiatics, from a share 
in the world beyond their frontiers. 

Then, as if unaware of the fatal breach they had made 
in their own solid front against the other races, the victors 
in the internecine war of the white race continued to main- 
tain the attitude towards Japan that they had been justified 
in maintaining when there was racial solidarity. The 
writer is certain that he has not made too bald or sweep- 
ing a statement. Without raising this point an effort to 
explain the post-bellum foreign policy of Japan would be 
fruitless. 

As to objects of foreign policy the Japanese people are 
united. These objects are the result of the same desires 
that have created the objects of the foreign policy of the 
other great powers, and are subject to criticism and con- 
demnation only if we believe that the Japanese are an 
inferior race who have no right to aspire to a gradually 
rising standard of living. It would be possible for the 
Japanese to accept their position vis-d-vis the white man's 
world, were they willing to abandon any effort to increase 
their national well-being and to provide for their future 
security and prosperity. But if we regard the Japanese 



518 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

as human beings, with the same reactions and ambitions as 
ourselves, we shall give them the credit of a foreign policy 
that aims to establish: (1) the supremacy of Japan in 
eastern Asia; (2) the ejection of the European powers and 
the United States from footholds on the mainland and 
islands of Asia in close enough proximity to her to threaten 
her security or the interruption of her maritime commu- 
nications; (3) the allotment to Japan of an equitable share 
of spheres of influence and colonizing areas by agreement, 
or, failing this, by conquest; and (4) the insistence upon 
the granting of equality, in the fullest sense of that term, 
to Asiatics in their own continent and in Africa with 
Europeans, or the expulsion of Europeans from Asia and 
Africa if this equality be not granted. 

The Japanese are not given to boasting about, or even 
discussing, what they intend to do. They succeed in keep- 
ing their thoughts to themselves, and are not aggressive 
with mouth or pen, as are Occidentals. The author is un- 
able to refer to any printed page or speech of statesmen as 
authority for the four essential points of Japanese foreign 
policy. But every act of the Japanese government in its 
international relations has tended to help along this pro- 
gram. The supremacy of Japan in eastern Asia, begun by 
the war of 1894 with China,^ has suffered no setback dur- 
ing the last thirty years; the ejection of the European 
powers, begun in the war of 1904 with Russia - and con- 
tinued in the war of 1914 with Germany,^ has progressed 
marvelously in eastern Siberia and outer Mongolia since 
1918. Japan's demand for spheres of influence dates back 
to the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, continues through 
the Lansing-Ishii agreement of 1916, and was quietly and 
firmly pressed at Paris and Washington; while fear for 
India and for Indo-China is, in part at least, the explana- 
tion of the remarkable hold of the Japanese Foreign Office 
upon London and Paris every time the question of evacuat- 

^ See Chapter X. ' See Chapter XII. • See Chapter XXVIII. 



FOEEIGN POLICY OF POST-BELLUM JAPAN 519 

ing Siberia and Manchuria has come up in international 
conferences. 

As to the methods of attaining these objects the Japa- 
nese are divided. Throwing aside the camouflage of gov- 
ernment and opposition parties, of the Elder Statesmen 
and the modernists, of jingos and anti-militarists, we find 
the leaders of public opinion endeavoring to influence the 
government and the people to adopt one or another of the 
following means to the one end. 

A great many Japanese are of the opinion that force of 
arms, which has been Japan's means of international prog- 
ress so far, will carry her steadily along to the supremacy, 
of Asia by adroit diplomacy, punctuated with an occa- 
sional war. Japan must not unnecessarily antagonize 
Europe or the United States, and she will find her best 
opportunities by remaining closely allied to the Entente 
powers for the present, meanwhile keeping her pow- 
der dry. This party is enthusiastic about the "Washing- 
ton conference, contending that the five-three-three ratio 
of naval strength is a great step towards Japanese su- 
premacy and relieves the government of a heavy financial 
burden. By not tempting fortune for a number of years, 
Japan will be ready to take advantage again of whatever 
situation arises in the next European war. 

A great many other Japanese are also of the opinion 
that force of arms is Japan's sole means of winning her 
proper place in the world, but they think that her oppor- 
tunity lies in coming to an understanding with Russia and 
Germany, so that when the next war arises she will be able 
to strike the British and French in the Far East. This 
party sees in the present condition of Europe a unique 
opportunity to use the powers Japan has already ousted 
from the Far East to help her get rid of the others. 

A great many other Japanese are also of the opinion 
that force of arms is the one argument of world politics, 
but they have no faith in the advancement of Japan's 



520 AN INTRODUCTION TO "WORLD POLITICS 

objects by alliance and cooperation with any European 
power. They declare that despite surface indications the 
white race will stand together in a pinch, asserting for 
instance that Germany or Russia, like Great Britain or 
France, would go to the aid of the United States in a 
Japanese-American war. This party bitterly opposes the 
imperialistic policy of Japan towards China, and advocates 
autonomy, if not independence, for Korea. It sees in the 
rapprochement of China and Japan the irresistible means 
of expelling all European powers and preaches the gospel 
of Asia for the Asiatics by the Asiatics. Its emissaries are 
working hard in Korea and China, and are beginning prop- 
aganda in Indo-China and India. They have condemned 
their own government for its actions in Korea, denounced 
the twenty-one demands, advocated the restitution of Shan- 
tung, and represented themselves as anti-imperialists and 
liberals, ready to encourage the aspirations of all subject 
and downtrodden peoples. 

The anti-militarist movement in Japan, of which much 
has been written since Germany's do^vnfall, is not fairly 
presented to European and American readers. It stands 
to reason that the Japanese are not more peace-loving than 
ourselves. We are anti-militarists and even pacifists, but 
with reservations. We want a fair share of prosperity for 
ourselves and assurances that our children will be secure 
and prosperous. But if we are given no bone when bones 
are being handed around, or when some other dog tries to 
take ours, we are ready for a fight. The Japanese move- 
ment against militarism and for harmonious relations with 
other nations is predicated upon the assumption that 
Europe and America intend to treat Japan fairly and rec- 
ognize that she has the same needs, and the same right to 
provide for them, that we have. The success of the anti- 
militarist movement in Japan depends upon developments 
outside Japan. Similarly, the English-speaking branches 
of the white race, by their policy in regard to Japanese 



FOREIGN POLICY OF POST-BELLUM JAPAN 521 

political and economic expansion, will determine whether 
we shall soon have another world war. They can not main- 
tain a monopoly of the world's colonizing areas and raw 
materials without having to fight one of three combina- 
tions, i. e., (1) Japan and the Latin-European countries; 
(2) Japan, Germany, and Russia; or (3) Japan and China. 



CHAPTER XL VI ^ 

THE PLACE OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 
(1920-1922) 

THE rise of the United States as a world power has 
been sudden and accidental, in contrast with the slow 
and deliberate extension of the economic influence and the 
political sovereignty of the European powers. The Span- 
ish-American War was caused by domestic considerations,^ 
and none realized that it was going to involve us in world 
affairs. Without intending it we became a colonial power 
in the Pacific and were compelled to play a role in inter- 
national diplomacy in the Far East. We did our best to 
keep out of the European war, and, during the four years 
since the armistice, we have avoided assuming responsibili- 
ties in the Near East and have refused to enter into alli- 
ances with European powers for the purpose of guarantee- 
ing the new European order established by the Paris 
treaties. But, willy-nilly, the American people are forced 
to recognize that the political as well as the economic equi- 
librium of the world depends upon the policies adopted by 
the United States. 

The place of the United States in the world and her pre- 
ponderant position in international affairs are the result 
of a natural growth in population and wealth, which has 
rapidly changed the relative position of the American peo- 
ple among the peoples of European origin. A hundred 
years ago, during the period of reconstruction following 
the Napoleonic wars, we were a small nation, with unde- 
veloped resources, and, although we grew rapidly each 
decade in population, the internal development of our own 

'See pp. 343-344. 

522 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 523 

country more than consumed our surplus, and we had to 
seek liquid capital in Europe. We had no part in the 
extension of the white race's political sovereignty over 
Asia and Africa, in its colonization of Australasia and parts 
of Africa, and in the marvelous development of interna- 
tional trade. Even on our own hemisphere we had few 
investments in foreign countries and traded very little 
with Latin America. But the decades preceding the 
World War saw us pass in population all the European 
nations except Russia, and between 1914 and 1920 we were 
transformed from a debtor to a creditor nation, with the 
other great powers owing us huge sums of money. Our 
intervention in the World War decided the issue in favor 
of the Entente powers, and brought into the conflict with 
the German coalition China, Siam, and the majority of the 
Latin-American states. 

A review of the increase in population tells the story of 
the change of our position vis-d-vis the other powers : 







IMMIGRANTS 






ENTERING IT. S. 


YF.AR 


POPULATION 


IN PRECEDING 
DECADE 


1820 


9,638,453 


250,000 (est.) 


1830 


12,860,692 


143,439 


1840 


17,063,353 


599,125 


1850 


23,191,876 


1,713,251 


1860 


31,443,321 


2,598,214 


1870 


38,558,371 


2,314,824 


1880 


50,155,783 


2,812,191 


1890 


62,947,714 


5,246,613 


1900 


75,994,575 


3,844,420 


1910 


91,972,266 


7,753,816 


1920 


105,710,620 


6,100,000 



Of the 34,000,000 immigrants added to the United States 
by immigration, considerably less than a million have come 
from Asia, and only half a million from France. Ger- 
many, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Austria-Hun- 
gary, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries have fur- 
nished the largest elements, ranging from five and a half 
to two millions. It is interesting to note, however, that 
,the northern European immigration has declined appre- 



524 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

ciably since 1890, and that the bulk of the immigration 
during the last thirty years has come from eastern, south- 
eastern, and southern Europe. In the years immediately 
preceding the World War Italy, Austria-Hungary, and 
Russia furnished more than three fourths of the total im- 
migration. 

Chinese exclusion laws became operative forty years ago, 
and the more delicate problem of excluding Japanese has 
been adjusted temporarily from time to time by a "gentle- 
man's agreement." But until after the World War no 
laws were enacted curtailing the volume of immigration 
from Europe. In 1921 Congress passed a temporary re- 
striction bill, fixing at three per cent, of the number of im- 
migrants already in the country the annual quota to be 
admitted from each European state. A strong current of 
opinion is making itself felt at Washington to suspend 
entirely for from three to five years the privilege of entry 
into the United States of those who come avowedly to make 
the New World their treasure-trove or permanent home 
We need a breathing-spell to assimilate the foreigners 
already in our midst; a great wave of undesirable immi- 
gration is feared; and widespread unemplojanent makes 
it inadvisable to add to the number of unskilled laborers 
seeking jobs. 

But even if we have little or no immigration during the 
years immediately ahead, or if we decide upon a definite 
policy of limitation by constitutional amendment,^ the im- 
migration from Europe of the past century — and espe- 
cially of the past thirty years — has established for the 
United States a unique and unalterable place among the 
nations of the world. Our place is unique and unalterable 
owing to the fact that by natural increase alone and by 
reason of the actual and potential wealth within our own 

^ From tho temper of Congress, reflecting the opinion of the country, 
it is reasonable to suppose that restriction of imuiigration will soon become 
a great national issue, and that the settlement of the problem will be reached 
by a constitutional amendment. 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 525 

borders we are bound to become and remain for a long 
time the most numerous and most wealthy of white peo- 
ples. Immigration accomplished this. But immigration 
accomplished also a radical transformation in the racial 
and cultural character of the American people to such an 
extent that when we finally entered the field of world poli- 
tics we were without a national consciousness of our own 
and at the same time without an irresistible affinity of 
blood or culture for any one European people. No one 
group or element of our population is now, or is likely to 
be in the future, strong enough to commit the United States 
to a foreign pohcy supporting one power or a coalition of 
powers against any other or others. Changing circum- 
stances might have led us into a political alliance with one 
or more European powers, had we not received a con- 
tinual and abundant infusion of new blood from every part 
of Europe. But the American people are too pan-Euro- 
pean now to make possible the abandonment of Washing- 
ton's farewell advice. 

There are no opponents to the policy of keeping the 
United States a white man's country. While it is impos- 
sible for our government to discriminate in favor of any 
European country, it is equally impossible to modify the 
existing regulations and agreements for the exclusion of 
Asiatics. But there are some Americans who beheve that 
our foreign policy, in dealing with the question of Asiatic 
immigration, must bring us into line with the self-govern- 
ing dominions of Great Britain in a common exclusion 
agreement. Said Senator Lodge, a few weeks after the 
election of President Harding: 

''There is one arrangement I should like to make very 
much, and that is an arrangement with Canada, Australia, 
and New Zealand in regard to Asiatic immigration. Their 
danger is the same as ours, and the shadow hangs darkest 
over Australia. We must face it, and it might as well be 
understood that it is in no sense of hostility to any nation, 



526 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

but there are certain great principles that must be ac- 
cepted. One is that no nation has the right or can find a 
cause of war in the demand that her people shall migrate 
to another free country, as the first sovereign right is the 
right to say who shall come into the country. ' ' ^ 

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- 
tee, Senator Lodge speaks with authority, and it is neces- 
sary to draw attention to the import of his words. We 
have already discussed the problem of Japan's attitude 
towards the exclusion of Asiatics from Australia and New 
Zealand, and have pointed out how this is bound to become 
a great issue in world politics, affecting the future of Euro- 
pean relations with India as well as with the Far East.- 
It will be generally admitted that there is a solidarity of 
interest between the United States and Canada in the mat- 
ter of mutually supporting the policy of excluding Asiatics. 
But the United States — and Canada as well — some day 
will have to face the alternatives of supporting the thesis 
that Australasia is a white man's land or of refusing to 
oppose the logical expansion of Japan. Sentimental rea- 
sons would dictate the choice of the first; but whether the 
second is not the wiser choice and the choice indicated by 
the interests of the peoples of the western hemisphere is 
an open question. We are confronted with the same prob- 
lem in regard to Japanese expansion in eastern Asia and 
the islands off the coast of the Asiatic continent. Euro- 
pean and American sovereignty has been extended to that 
part of the world because of the need of the European 
and American peoples for colonizing areas and markets. 
Now that Japan, following Occidental economic evolution, 
has become an industrial nation, are we going to hem her 
in, prevent her growth, attempt to destroy her, or are we 

^ SpeakinfT at the Union League, Philadelphia, November 28, 1920. Upon 
this principle the inhabitants of Palestine base their right to oppose Zionism, 
and the British government is beginning to see the unwisdom, as well aa 
the injustice and inconsistency, of forcing the Palestinians to accept immi- 
grants from Europe whose avowed object is to get political control of the 
country. 

"See pp. 516-517. 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 527 

going to acknowledge her right to a share in the world 
beyond her frontiers ? 

Instinctively the American people are ready to under- 
write the status quo in Canada, and to consider that our 
national interests are affected by any changes or upsets in 
any part of North or South America. But they will not 
intervene in the political affairs of Europe, and if we are 
asked to defend the title of European nations to their pos- 
sessions in other parts of the world, questions immediately 
arise with which only those who are versed in practical 
world politics are competent to deal. For we must satisfy 
ourselves that the status quo we are called upon to defend, 
at the risk of another bloody and costly war, is advanta- 
geous to the present and future interests of the United 
States. 

In tracing the motives and the results of the expansion 
of European nations overseas we have realized how each 
of these nations has endeavored to establish exclusive 
rights of exploitation, how they have come into conflict 
with one another by trying to check one another's expan- 
sion, how they have avoided wars by bargaining and ar- 
ranging spheres of influence, and how Japan's recent his- 
tory is simply an imitation in self-defense of the foreign 
policies of European countries. Do ut des (I give that you 
may give) has been the principle of diplomacy where it was 
impossible or was deemed inexpedient or too costly to re- 
sort to force. Conquest, or failing that bargaining, has 
made the political status quo in Asia and Africa. To 
weak peoples and to peoples conquered in war this status 
quo is disadvantageous, because it places the commerce 
and capital and shipping of these peoples in a position of 
inferiority in world trade. 

In so far as world trade is concerned, the United States 
is in the same position of inferiority as weak nations and 
is almost as badly off as the nations that were compelled 
to sign the Paris treaties. It is simply because we have not 



528 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

set store upon overseas trade and investments and have 
not had a large merchant marine that we have not felt 
the pinch of the hold of Great Britain, France, and Japan 
upon the Far East, and of the two former powers upon 
the Near East and Africa — a hold that the treaty of 
Versailles, the San Remo conference, and the treaties of 
the Washington conference immeasurably strengthened.^ 
American goods are discriminated against in Manchuria 
and other parts of China, in Indo-China, and, in fact, in 
every part of the world where the flags of the European 
nations fly; and the same handicap is felt by American 
steamship lines and American capital seeking investment. 
Numerous instances have arisen since the World War to 
prove that the Entente powers and Japan have felt no 
sense of obligation towards the United States in their ar- 
rangements to enjoy the fruits of the victory over Ger- 
many, and our State Department has protested on several 
occasions against the tendency to exclude American citi- 
zens from a share in the spoils. We have space only to 
enumerate some concrete illustrations of discrimination: 
ignoring American interests and claims in the allotment of 
cables surrendered by Germany, and in the distribution of 
mandates (island of Yap); refusal of British and French 
governments to grant American companies equal opportu- 
nities for oil prospecting and development in Mesopotamia 
with those granted to British and French companies (Colby 
and Hughes notes of protest) ; throwing out by Alexandria 
Chamber of Commerce, controlled by Englishmen, of the 
lowest bids for transport of Egj^tian cotton to the United 
States, and the insistence that this cotton be transported 
in British bottoms or at least be transshipped by way of 
Liverpool (protest of United States Shipping Board) ; in- 

* See pp. 550-551. If the American student desires to get a graphic picture 
_, of what these advantages are, let him go through the treaties, keeping in 

I mind that the status quo of 1914 was already exceedingly advantageous to 

the powers who were the exclusive beneficiaries of the 1919 and 1920 treaties 

and agreements. 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 529 

terference of British and French High Commissions in 
Constantinople with American efforts to get trade and 
unfair discrimination in favor of their own nationals, under 
guise of military necessity (protest of American Chamber 
of Commerce for the Levant) ; the effort of Great Britain 
to get exclusive control of the resources of Persia (Anglo- 
Persian agreement of Teheran, August, 1919, against which 
the American government formally protested) ; the cam- 
paign in the French press to erect against other powers 
than France the same tariffs that hold in French colo- 
nies; and the propaganda in Great Britain for imperial 
preferential tariffs in other than self-governing dominions 
(already begun in the 1918 Indian export duties). 

The reader who has followed the story of world politics 
through this book will realize how these discriminations 
fall upon the United States in the way that they fall upon 
weak and dispossessed nations. Great Britain and France 
and Russia in the past made mutual concessions to one 
another ; Great Britain and Japan did the same ; after the 
opening of the World War Italy was received into the 
Entente Alliance with definite advantages and rewards 
promised her; and now, when Russia recovers her power, 
she will be able to get back many of her old exclusive rights 
beyond her European frontiers, and force the Entente 
powers to revise their post-bellum agreements and let her 
in on the Near Eastern spoils of war. Each of these powers 
is compensated for what the other four enjoy; and they 
have a common interest in preventing Germany from re- 
covering her colonies and her former commercial position 
outside Europe. Their present policy towards Germany is 
influenced by their ability to bargain with one another in 
African and Asiatic territories and spheres of influence.* 

The United States is assured by her European comrades- 
in-arms that the enemies of Germany fought for a common 
cause, won a common victory, and are equally interested 

^See pp. 549-550. 



/ 



530 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

in enforcement of the treaties. But the principle of com- 
munity in ideals and sacrifices and burdens in time of 
peace does not extend to community in the fruits of victory. 
Not only did the Entente powers divide among themselves 
the mandates for the German colonies and the territories 
liberated from the Ottoman Empire, but they also left the 
United States out of the reckoning in the apportionment of 
the indemnity to be exacted. They went so far as to con- 
test the right of the United States to hold the ships and to 
retain the other property she had seized from enemy na- 
tionals. 

Despite our refusal to enter the League of Nations and 
to make ourselves responsible for the execution of the 
Paris treaties, we are still importuned to undertake respon- 
sibilities and to enter into commitments that tend to make 
us accept as permament and even to pledge us to defend a 
world-wide political and economic status quo that is de- 
cidedly to our disadvantage if we intend to or feel that we 
need to play the role of a world power. 

We have been disappointed in the realization of our 
ideals ; we are too divided in blood and cultural background 

K to cooperate with certain European nations to further their 
interests against the interests of others because of kinship, 
aifection, or admiration; and, as a nation, we are not 
yet interested enough in foreign trade to believe that ourj'^ 
prosperity is dependent upon an aggressive foreign policy 
aimed at throwing open the doors closed against us and 
removing the discriminations and inequalities handicapping 
American goods, capital, and shipping in Africa and Asia. 
The events of the past four years in international poli- 

y tics have strongly influenced the American people against 
the policy of political cooperation with other nations in 
settling the affairs of the world. When he refused the 
invitation to participate in the Genoa conference. President 

7 Harding proved himself a correct interpreter of American 
public opinion. And there is not much chance of a change 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 531 

in the attitude of the United States towards the rest of 
the world until the American people begin to compete with 
other nations for world trade, with the feeling that their X 
well-being depends upon getting a good share, or until, by 
the initiative of other nations, we are persuaded to aban- 
don our policy of aloofness and inditference. Let us exam- 
ine these two contingencies. 

The war in Europe created an unprecedented demand 
for American manufactured and agricultural products and 
seemingly brought unprecedented prosperity to the Ameri- 
can people. In addition to supplying the European markets 
with war materials and with food-stuffs and manufactured 
articles, we found a demand for American goods in South 
American and colonial markets. But the conditions that 
created this export trade were artificial, and the prosperity 
was artificial. Europe bought from us because of her des- 
perate need and because her energies were devoted to fight- 
ing; the other continents bought from us because we did 
not have the competition of European goods. After the 
war was over we discovered that a good part of our exports 
was paid for with money our government had loaned the 
borrowers, or was sold on credit. Most of what we sup- 
posedly earned during the war was our own money, sub- 
scribed to the successive American Liberty Loans or to 
loans of foreign governments offered in the United States 
through American banks. Since the latter part of 1919 
the high price of the dollar has militated against American 
foreign trade. But, even if exchange were normal, could 
we sell extensively in world markets in competition with 
the European powers and Japan, and would it be worth 
our while to do so 1 If we limit immigration, is it probable 
that for many years to come American producers as a 
whole will regard overseas markets as profitable! Many 
competent students of American economic life are of the 
opinion that through supplying domestic markets we shall 
see during the next thirty years a return to the prosperity 



532 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

that this country experienced in the generation after the 
Civil War. It is hard to dissent from this opinion and 
to controvert it, especially when one realizes that the in- 
stinctive orientation of the American people is towards a 
new period of intensive internal development. 

Some American capitalists and manufacturers and 
bankers care very much about foreign trade, and have car- 
ried on a powerful propaganda to create an appetite for it 
and to inform business men of the patent reasons for our 
lack of success in capturing and holding a share of it. 
Much has been written on the necessity of controlling cables, 
extending long credits, having our own merchant marine, 
investing money in the countries in which we plan to de- 
velop markets, opening branches of American banks, send- 
ing out bona fide Americans to represent American inter- 
ests, learning foreign languages, adapting our goods and 
our weights and measures to the markets in which we intend 
to sell, improving our consular service, and getting the 
State Department and our diplomatic representatives be- 
hind American trade in the way that the machinery of 
other governments stands behind the trade of their na- 
tionals. But the great mass of Americans do not care 
enough about foreign trade to go after it in the European 
way, and do not believe that the returns will compensate 
for the abandonment by our government of its traditional 
policies for the policies that have brought the European 
nations and Japan at one another's throats. 

Because we do not feel ourselves dependent upon and 
therefore are not worrying about w^orld markets, the in- 
sistence of the United States upon the open door in China 
and upon equal opportunities for American trade and in- 
vestment elsewhere has been purely academic. We have 
made no threats; and we have esteemed the privileges of 
too slight value to assume responsibilities in order to make 
good our claim to them. This fact is seen in our attitude 
towards the question of mandates. We have not wanted 



PLACE OF UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD 533 

to add to our responsibilities. On the contrary, most 
Americans are willing even to give up a great possession 
already acquired, like the Philippine Islands. Suggestions 
that the United States liquidate in part or in whole the 
Allied indebtedness by taking over the British and French 
possessions in the West Indies and in South America, or 
by acquiring title to Near Eastern countries and the Ger- 
man colonies, in regard to which the mandate scheme does 
not seem to be working, receives little attention in the 
American press.^ World power, in terms of economic im- 
perialism or bearing the white man's burden, does not 
tempt the American people enough to induce them to set 
a price upon their cooperation with other nations in man- 
aging the world. 

But if we were persistently and ardently wooed our in- 
terest could be aroused. One might not value a thing 
enough to fight for it or even to ask for it, but he would 
probably not refuse it if it were offered him. The power 
and the self-sufficiency of the United States are factors 
in the international situation that the Entente powers 
would do well to consider as Siamese twins. It may be 
sound doctrine for them to preach that we need their friend- 
ship and cooperation as much as they need ours, and that 
our well-being is dependent upon their economic rehabili- 
tation and political ascendancy. But American public 
opinion will not accept it. Those who seek our aid must 
make sacrifices to obtain it. The time never was when we 
were influenced by the argument that they were fighting our 
battle for us, although it might have been, had the right 
kind of a peace crowned the victory over Germany. The 
American people are deaf to the two pleas most commonly 
advanced for a close understanding and cooperation with 
the Entente powers, that we should be defending civiliza- 

^ Or in Congress. In fact, the advocates of an exchange of this sort have 

been laughed at more than once. Senator France's scheme for taking over 

the German African colonies was ridiculed in the Senate, and was the sub- 
ject for many quips in the press. 



534 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tion and that we should be advancing our own interests. 
The way the victory over Germany has been used makes us 
doubt, rightly or wrongly, the former; and our common 
sense, after studying the play of world politics during the 
years that followed the armistices, has caused us to ques- 
tion whether the maintenance of the world-wide status quo 
conforms with our interests, or at least whether we should 
be justified in committing ourselves to any financial or 
military burdens in upholding the arrangements of the 
Paris treaties. 

The place of the United States in the world is that of 
the strongest of the powers, whose potential supremacy is 
not recognized by the other powers and is not yet a danger 
because it is not yet an ambition. Because of the composi- 
tion of her people the United States can not be reckoned 
upon to take sides in any European quarrel or to support 
the domination of one European people over another. Be- 
cause of the resources still undeveloped within her own 
frontiers, the United States has not entered into world 
politics as a struggle for existence or as a means of attain- 
ing and maintaining prosperity. Because of her geographi- 
cal position and population, national security is not one of 
her problems in international relations. By the initiative 
and skilful diplomacy of other powers she may be led into ^ 
extending her colonial responsibilities and into backing her\ 
own race against the yellow race. But of her own initiative ^ > 
it is not probable that she will acquire new colonies, or that 
she will assume the championship of European supremacy 
in the Far East and the Pacific. . 

/ 



CHAPTER XLVII 

BASES OP SOLIDAEITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 

(1922) 

NONE denies that the world is askew. Ships of state 
are pilotless and rudderless, riding God knows 
whither. In every country internal economic and social 
conditions are so upset that forecasts of the morrow seem 
futile. And yet, international political relationships de- 
pend upon these internal conditions more intimately and 
more entirely than ever before in history. Statesmen are 
still sitting at the diplomatic chessboard, making moves in 
accordance with the old rules of the game. But each reahzes 
that shaping the foreign policy of his nation is no longer 
independent of or divorced from home policies and prob- 
lems. The old order upon which one could count in direct- 
ing foreign affairs has given place to new and uncertain 
values. Just what the changes are, whether for good or 
bad, whether permanent or temporary, and how we are to 
adjust ourselves to them and take advantage of them or 
combat them, as the case may be — on all this we need con- 
structive thinking, uncrowded by the hysteria and emotions 
born of the war. 

The creation of a sentiment of solidarity among the peo- 
ples of the English-speaking world will do more to improve 
international relations generally and to hasten the era of 
a durable world peace than any other concrete proposal that 
has been advanced. But, unfortunately, the advocates of 
an English-speaking union base their hopes of its fruition 
upon the assumption that the United States and the British 
self-governing dominions are predominantly English (or 
English and Scotch) in their blood, culture, and sympathies. 

635 



536 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

The American of Scotch or English descent, for instance, 
is likely to say that this is an Anglo-Saxon country, and 
that the Germans, Irish, and other Europeans did not have 
to come here ; when they did come, it was incumbent upon 
them to forget old ties and to become assimilated with us. 
This element asserts the right to justify close ties with 
Great Britain on the ground that ''blood is thicker than 
water," but denies the right of harking back to the home 
country to the other national groups that go to make up 
the composite population of the United States. 

In 1914 this contention was put squarely before Ameri- 
cans of continental European origin. But it was never ad- 
mitted by them. The remarkable unity of the American 
nation, after we went into the war, did not mean, among 
Americans of other than Anglo-Saxon origin, the abandon- 
ment of affection for, or pride in, their own ancestors. 
Now that peace has been restored, German-Americans re- 
fuse to accept the brand of hyphenate, arguing that, until 
their country of origin became the enemy of the United 
States, they had as much right to feel sympathetic towards 
it and even to help its cause as did the Americans of Anglo- 
Saxon origin to sympathize with and help Great Britain. 
Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin must remember that the 
United States from the beginning contained elements with- 
out a drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins ; that Ger- 
mans, Irish, and Hollander: fought in the Revolutionary 
"War; that a large part of the Irish and Germans came to 
this country before the Civil War ; and that the remarkable 
growth and prosperity of the United States is due to emi- 
gration from continental Europe and Ireland in the last 
sixty years fully as much as, if not more than, to what has 
come from England and Scotland. 

The greatness of the United States in the third decade 
of the twentieth century is due to the combined aid of 
several different elements of her population. The elements 
that are not Anglo-Saxon are so numerous and so powerful 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 537 

in wealth and political influence that it is impossible to 
build the structure of an English-speaking union upon the 
foundation of blood and cultural ties with England. The 
federal census for 1920 demonstrates the folly of consid- 
ering the United States an Anglo-Saxon country. The 
Anglo-Saxon element in our population is not only becom- 
ing proportionately smaller as a result of our variegated 
immigration, but it is also refusing to reproduce itself.^ 
It will do us no good to discount the importance of our 
compatriots who are not of Anglo-Saxon blood. If we 
want to make English-speaking solidarity a national policy 
instead of a group cult, we shall have to find an appeal to 
the American public different from that of orators and 
writers who speak to present-day Americans of our English 
ancestors and our precious English heritage. 

Nor is the superiority of Anglo-Saxon culture an argu- 
ment that impresses many outside the proportionately 
dwindhng Anglo-Saxon element. It smacks too much of a 
discredited political system that sought to replace or dom- 
inate other cultures by the Kultur of the Uhermenscli. 
Culture is a vague word. If it means traditions, customs, 
and mental habits, as embodied in literature and preserved 
in family life and religion, we shall find many other Ameri- 
can elements than German unwilling to abandon for the 
Anglo-Saxon culture what they brought here from the Old 
World. Thousands of flourishing communities exist in the 
United States, nurseries of splendid Americans, where the 
new generation is being brought up with traditions, customs, 
and mental habits different from those of Anglo-Saxons. 

^ In 1921 Germans led in the number of naturalized citizens, followed by 
Austrians, Italians, and Jews. In New York City the birth-rate for foreign 
born last year was 38 per thousand; for native born, 16; and for the dis- 
tricts of the city from which membership in the English-speaking union is 
exclusively recruited, 7. At a dinner given in the interests of Anglo-American 
friendship, the diners, representing the quintessence of Anglo-Saxon culture 
in New York, did not boast of enough children, all told, to amount to 
their own number. More than half of the waiters were of former enemy na- 
tionality, and the married waiters averaged between four and five children. 
At one table a German waiter had more children than the eight diners put 
together. 



538 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

From Scandinavians to Italians, the rapidly increasing 
groups of continental European origin are not giving up 
their culture for Anglo-Saxon culture. So strong are 
atavism, the home circle, and the church that our pubhc 
school system does not Anglicize the children in teaching 
them English. We are unsuccessful in telling Hans 
Schmidt, Giuseppe Tommasi, Abram Einstein, Olaf An- 
dersen, Robert Emmet O'Brien, and a dozen others that 
they are not good Americans because they do not cheer- 
fully accept the supremacy of the Enghsh and Scotch 
among us and the superiority of English and Scotch ways. 
Nothing could be better fitted to arouse within them a fierce 
determination to resist assimilation and oppose the policy 
of Anglo-Saxon solidarity. 

Most thinking Americans, after a review of world politics 
during the past century and after the experiences of the 
World War, agree that the British Empire and the United 
States ought to face the future together. An encouraging 
beginning in this direction was made at the Washington 
conference. But how are we going to create an irresistible 
public opinion in the United States in favor of a foreign 
policy that will embody as one of its cardinal principles the 
fostering of English-speaking solidarity? What are the 
bases of solidarity among English-speaking nations? 

The Anglo-American community of blood and community 
of history are bases of solidarity to not more than half, if 
indeed half, of the American people. The blood of the rest 
is not ours, the earlier English history they did not share 
with us, and American history gives them ground for an- 
tagonism to the British rather than for sympathy with the 
British. Only the Teutonic element understands our re- 
ligion. Community of culture is limited to language. This 
is a bond with Canada, for there is constant intercourse 
between Canadians and Americans, and the same books 
and periodicals are read. It is becoming a factor in our 
relations with Australia, also, because Australians read 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 539 

popular American periodical literature. But beyond the 
limited circle that is already Anglo-Saxon few British 
and Americans come into personal contact, and the re- 
ciprocal purchase of books and magazines and newspapers 
is surprisingly small. Common language is an asset 
working in favor of those who seek to bring together the 
English-speaking peoples. But it is hardly a basis for 
solidarity. 

We can appeal to the whole English-speaking world, how- 
ever, and emphasize as bases of solidarity: (1) common 
laws and the same spirit of administration of justice; (2) 
similar development of democratic institutions; (3) com- 
mon ideals; and (4) common interests. The first two are 
in a certain sense included in the third and fourth, and the 
fourth covers the first three. One appeals to the moral 
sense and to self-interest, and then, to clinch the argument, 
shows how idealism is in harmony with interest, as in the 
adage, ''Honesty is the best policy." 

In discussing these bases of solidarity it must be remem- 
bered that the problem involves the direct relations be- 
tween each two of the members of the English-speaking 
group of nations and between each English-speaking coun- 
try and the colonies and possessions of the British Empire 
and of the United States. The following list shows how 
wide a field is covered and how the question of the political 
unity of English-speaking peoples touches many of the 
most important phases of world politics : 

Great Britain and United States 
Great Britain and Ireland 
Ireland and United States 
Great Britain and Canada 
United States and Canada 
Ireland and Canada 
Great Britain and Australia 
United States and Australia 
Ireland and Australia 
Canada and Australia 



540 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

Great Britain and New Zealand 

United States and New Zealand 

Ireland and New Zealand 

Canada and New Zealand 

Australia and New Zealand 

Great Britain and South Africa 

United States and South Africa 

Ireland and South Africa 

Canada and South Africa 

Australia and South Africa 

New Zealand and South Africa 

Great Britain and India and other possessions 

United States and British possessions 

Ireland and British possessions 

Canada and British possessions 

Australia and British possessions 

New Zealand and British possessions 

South Africa and British possessions 

United States and her possessions 

Great Britain and American possessions 

Ireland and American possessions 

Canada and American possessions 

Australia and American possessions 

New Zealand and American possessions 

South Africa and American possessions 

British possessions and American possessions 

Thirty-six separate headings may seem at first glance 
useless repetition. But some problem of solidarity arises 
aifecting primarily the two parties coupled in each of these 
relations. In fact, it is not difficult to find several sources 
of friction calling for adjustment, several problems de- 
manding solution, under every single one of the thirty-six. 
Indeed, we might be justified in adding to the list because 
of the new responsibilities that have come to the British 
Empire through the acquisition of the former German colo- 
nies, some of which have been given to South Africa, Aus- 
tralia, and New Zealand. The character and limitations 
of the mandates are as yet unsettled, and the United States 
has questioned the rights of the mandatories. A diplo- 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 541 

matic conflict has already arisen between the United States 
and Great Britain over the Mesopotamian mandate.^ If 
the United States feels that her interests in German South- 
west Africa and in the Pacific islands formerly belonging 
to Germany are ignored, will she address herself to Great 
Britain or directly to the self-governing dominions? 

The years immediately ahead are years of peril for the 
solidarity of English-speaking countries. One feels a cry- 
ing need of light, and more light^ in considering the quad- 
rangular character of relations between different parts of 
the world now under Anglo-Saxon domination — Great 
Britain; the British dominions; the United States; and the 
possessions and protectorates of Great Britain, the domin- 
ions, and the United States. The Washington conference 
has brought to the front and emphasized the undefined 
nature of these relations. Japan? The Pacific? Tariffs? 
Shipping? Sea power? Status of the liberated Near 
Eastern countries and of .the former German colonies? 
Panama Canal? Monroe Doctrine? League of Nations? 
The new Irish Free State? We can not treat these matters 
simply as questions between London and Washington. Nor 
can Great Britain treat them that way. Both London and 
Washington are forced to take into consideration the 
wishes and interests of the self-governing dominions of 
the British Empire, whose virtual independence gives them 
distinct points of view and programs of their own.^ With 
the exception of South Africa, the self-governing domin- 
ions are, like the United States, the outgrowth of Euro- 
pean civilization transplanted and developed under the 
aegis of England. It is natural that in mentality, and fre- 
quently in interests, they should be nearer to us than to 
the mother country. Canada and South Africa have im- 
portant European elements that have not been under the 
influence of, and are antipathetic to, Anglo-Saxon culture. 
During the years of tension between the United Kingdom 

*See p. 551. 'See pp. 496-499. 



542 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and Ireland, from 1916 to 1922, Australia's Irish rivaled 
ours in singing the hymn of hate against England. 

Consciousness and appreciation of our common system 
of jurisprudence is the first basis of Anglo-Saxon soli- 
darity. There is unity in the conception and administra^ 
tion of law in English-speaking countries. Just laws justly 
administered are the foundation of civilized society. Those 
who live under them prize them more highly than any other 
possession. No alien, whatever his origin, fails to ac- 
knowledge the blessings of Anglo-Saxon law. Our laws 
and our courts are the outgrowth of centuries of English 
history and experience. They offer the greatest protec- 
tion to the individual and the widest possibility of per- 
sonal freedom that the world has ever known. Within 
recent years, if America meant to the immigrant ''the 
home of the free," it was because of the scrupulous admin- 
istration of justice according to the laws handed down to 
us from colonial days. Similarly the emigrant from con- 
tinental Europe who went to a British colony was sure of 
a '* square deal." Before the law he was the equal of any 
other man. Entering our society, he shared immediately 
the benefits of our most sacred heritage — free speech, free 
assembly, the habeas corpus act, and the principles of 
Anglo-Saxon law assured to the inhabitants of the United 
States not only by custom and our system of jurisprudence, 
but by the first amendments of the Constitution. As far 
as laws and the administration of justice are concerned, 
the English-speaking countries have had a similar develop- 
ment, and this powerful link that binds them to England 
more closely than a common language has not been severed. 

Political institutions and jurisprudence go together. 
Although the American commonwealth has developed its 
political institutions with less strict adherence to English 
standards than in the case of jurisprudence, the modifica- 
tions do not affect the spirit of the representative govern- 
ment we received from England. When the American 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 543 

colonies fought the mother country, it was to preserve their 
rights as Englishmen, which they believed had not been 
forfeited by transplantation. The War of Independence 
established a principle that has been vital in the develop- 
ment of English-speaking countries. Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand, and South Africa owe to the American rebels 
the possession of Anglo-Saxon liberties in new worlds 
without having had to fight for them. 

The continental European who emigrates to white men^s 
countries under the Anglo-Saxon form of government be^ 
comes, after naturalization, an equal partner with every 
other citizen. He votes. He is eligible for office. No 
argument is necessary to convince him of the advantages 
of Hving under Anglo-Saxon political institutions. If these 
institutions are properly administered, he appreciates them 
as highly as he appreciates Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. 
The second basis of solidarity among English-speaking 
peoples, therefore, is Anglo-Saxon polity, and it can be 
urged upon Americans who are unresponsive to the call of 
blood and culture. 

Every inhabitant of English-speaking countries is in- 
terested in the maintenance and defense of the jurispru- 
dence and polity under which he lives. We must prove to 
him, first of all, that we ourselves cherish this jurispru- 
dence and this polity; that (whatever the lapses of the war 
years) we intend to conduct our national life in the strict 
spirit of them ; and that he is our partner in their benefits. 
Then we can point out to him that English-speaking coun- 
tries can not afford to risk the deterioration or loss of these 
precious possessions by pursuing antagonistic policies in 
the electrically charged post-bellum world, and he will 
begin to see the common sense of a rapprochement between 
Great Britain, her dominions, and ourselves. 

Community of ideals, the third basis of solidarity, fur- 
nishes a powerful argument to the inhabitants of English- 
speaking countries to stick together. The World War 



544 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

touched the soul of the English-speaking peoples, and the 
sacrifices necessary to victory were consented to, in Great 
Britain and the dominions as in the United States, because 
of the moral indignation of the people and their respon- 
siveness to the crusader appeal. In a certain sense the 
United States was kicked into the war, because pubhc 
opinion demanded that Germany's challenge be accepted. 
But, after we entered it, the remarkable effort in man 
power and money made by the United States was due, not 
to spontaneous combustion, but to the clever propaganda 
of official and unofficial organizations, assisted by the press. 
Germany's crime and America's ideals were what brought 
us to the fighting-point and kept us there. Despite our 
mixture of blood and of cultural backgrounds, successive 
generations of development under English jurisdiction and 
polity have imbued us with an idealism that is distinctly 
Anglo-Saxon. It was slow to awake, but when it did awake, 
the people of the United States were ready to make every 
sacrifice for the triumph of the ideals embodied by Presi- 
dent Wilson in his war speeches. 

Speaking at Manchester in December, 1918, on the eve 
of the peace conference, the President declared that the 
United States could never enter into any league that was 
not an association of all nations for the common good. He 
undoubtedly had in mind the formidable number of millions 
of Americans who were reluctant to aid Anglo-Saxon and 
Latin against Teuton, but who supported the war against 
Germany without hesitation because Germany stood for 
militarism, autocracy, imperialism, and the oppression of 
small nations. Mr. Wilson knew that these millions of loyal 
Americans would not feel called upon to sanction and col- 
laborate in enforcing a sordid and materialistic peace that 
would make some races or peoples masters of others. For 
the sake of idealism and for the United States, their 
adopted country, they fought against kith and kin, shoulder 
to shoulder with those whom they believed, rightly or 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 545 

wrongly, to be the oppressors or enemies of their country 
of origin. Can we expect our compatriots of German or 
Irish or Slavic stock to support a European and a world 
order based upon the permanent inferiority and subjection 
of those whose blood runs in their veins and whose culture 
their home training has taught them to respect and foster? 

Some unthinking Americans hotly answer in the affirma- 
tive, and revive the epithet of hyphenate. But in doing so 
they reveal themselves to be backsliding Anglo-Saxons. A 
sense of justice and the ability to put one's self in the 
other man's place are the Anglo-Saxon qualities par ex- 
cellence. One who is of pure British blood and who has 
been steeped in Anglo-Saxon traditions can not help look- 
ing with contempt upon parvenus who are plus royalistes 
que le roi. The American of German or Irish origin who 
speaks or works for Anglo-Saxon racial and cultural su- 
premacy is a strange creature. ''If I forget thee, Jeru- 
salem," is a sacred sentiment to the decent-minded man. 
The pride I have in my ancestry and my sense of partner- 
ship in English history and traditions enable me to respect 
others for thinking of other countries as I think of Eng- 
land. Insisting that they foul their own nests is a sad test 
for recruits to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. Americans who 
maintain that it is our duty as good citizens of the United 
States to work for the material advancement of Great 
Britain because of kinship are appealing to group feeling, 
not national feeling, and are therefore as guilty of hyphen- 
ism as are the propagandists of other group partizanships. 

The justification for advocating political cooperation 
among English-speaking peoples, if we are appealing to 
the sentiment of the American people, is, therefore, that 
this group of peoples is using its influence, in international 
relations, for the triumph of a new world order. The sine 
qua non of the rapprochement is harmony of ideals. Great 
Britain will be drawn to us, the self-governing dominions 
will be drawn to us, and we shall be drawn to Great Britain 



546 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

and the self-governing dominions if and because we have 
common ideals. On both sides we need to discuss the claims 
of weaker nations courageously and endeavor to remedy 
shortcomings in following ideals; for this is the way to 
remove sources of friction and barriers to English-speaking 
soHdarity. 

In regard to Germany, Great Britain has acted admirably 
and is living up to her ideals of fair play and is not kick- 
ing- the other fellow when he is down. The generous settle- 
ment of the Irish question is a great step forward to the 
establishment of good feeling among English-speaking 
countries. We must strive to make the association of 
English-speaking nations a committee for giving Anglo- 
Saxon liberties to the whole world. This thought came to 
me with peculiar force when I stood on the spot in the 
Moses Taylor Pyne estate where are buried those who fell 
in the battle of Princeton. On a bronze tablet are inscribed 
the words of Alfred Noyes: 

''Here freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe, 
And, ere the wrath paled, or that sunset died, 
Looked through the ages, then, mth eyes aglow, 
Laid them to wait that future, side by side. ' ' 

The ''future, side by side" of English-speaking coun- 
tries can mean only working for the spread of freedom. 
We shall not help each other to deny freedom to others, 
and if we did join in an Anglo-Saxon freebooting expedi- 
tion across the world, we should quickly foUow the law of 
pirates and be at each other's throats. 

But common idealism is not sufficient as cement and as 
motive power. In every human association interest is the 
corner-stone. Men cooperate in no undertaking in which 
the element of mutual advantage does not play the pre- 
dominating role. Other factors are present, of course, and 
mutual interest may not be the exciting cause of entering 
into a common undertaking. But is not interest the tie 



SOLIDARITY AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS 547 

that binds, as well as the foundation upon which is built, 
human society? The three bases of solidarity among 
English-speaking peoples already suggested have in them 
the element of interest. The fourth basis of solidarity is 
the mutual discovery of tangible benefits accruing to all 
alike from cooperation in international affairs. 

What are the interests we might have in common? Are 
they numerous and important enough to justify a close 
union among English-speaking countries? What particu- 
lar interests would have to be sacrificed in order to further 
the common interests? Are the sacrifices possible? Is it 
worth while to make them? A study of world politics is 
necessary before we can answer these questions. But 
those who believe that the political and economic rap- 
prochement of English-speaking peoples is a possibility 
that ought to be carefully considered will fail of appre- 
ciable results unless they realize the composite racial and 
cultural character of the American nation and unless they 
are willing to discuss new questions frankly and with de- 
tachment in the good old English fashion. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

THE CONTINUATION CONFEEENCES: FROM LONDON TO 
GENOA (1919-1922) 

THE victors in the World War attempted to arrange 
temis of peace in a conference from which the van- 
quished were excluded. Because the victors were unable 
to compromise their divergent aspirations and foreign 
policies and were unwilling to arrange to enforce the peace 
by automatic military measures, this method of peace- 
making failed. Of the justice and wisdom of the Paris 
treaties there was room for an honest difference of opin- 
ion. Of their practicability no difference of opinion was 
possible. It was immediately recognized that the Paris 
conference had not accomplished its purpose, and there 
began a series of continuation conferences that followed 
one another in rapid succession for three years. 

Before the Paris conference formally ended, the pre- 
miers, secretaries of foreign affairs, and ambassadors of 
Great Britain, France, and Italy began to hold special 
meetings to discuss unfinished business and new problems 
as they arose. At the end of November, 1919, when the 
treaty of Versailles was not yet in operation and the 
League of Nations was not yet functioning, representa- 
tives of the three powers conferred in London on the 
Greek crisis, the Fiume situation, and the devolution of the 
Ottoman Empire. In January, 1920, the Italians conferred 
with the British in London and then with the British and 
French in Paris on the Adriatic problem. An agreement 
was reached, to which it was hoped the United States would 
assent. Although its details were kept secret, the agree- 
ment was announced as the final word of the three powers 

548 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 549 

on the Fiume and Albanian questions, and was com- 
municated to Serbia in the form of an ultimatum. The 
Serbians were summoned to consent to the status of a 
free city for Fiume, its frontiers touching on Italian 
Istria, with port and railway facilities placed under the 
League of Nations, with the alternative of seeing the three 
allies put into operation the secret treaty of London, which 
would have meant the extension of Italian sovereignty over 
the better part of Dalmatia. Parts of Albania were to be 
given to Serbia and Greece, and the rest of that country 
placed under an Italian mandate. 

The United States protested vigorously against the 
policy of coercing Serbia and partitioning Albania. Italy 
and Serbia finally agreed upon a compromised frontier, and 
in the treaty of Eapallo, November 12, 1920, Serbia sacri- 
ficed Fiume to save Dahnatia. The Albanian arrangement 
was modified, chiefly because of the ability of the Albanians 
to protect their frontiers against Serbians and Greeks and 
to expel the Italians; and Albania was admitted to the 
League of Nations.^ 

The San Remo conference, which opened on April 19, 
1920, had as its agenda (1) the execution of the treaty of 
Versailles, (2) Russian affairs, and (3) the settlement of the 
terms of the Turkish treaty. These three questions, debated 
in secrecy, were neither envisaged nor decided on their 
merits ; but they were debated at the same time, and each 
premier gave in on some point in order to have his way 
on others. Millerand won on Germany; Lloyd George on 
Turkey; and Nitti on Russia. All three premiers pro- 
fessed to be satisfied, and declared that they were in har- 
mony. But San Remo was the beginning of a marked 

^ The Italian government had great difficulties throughout the year 1920 
with an important and aggressive nationalist movement, which supported 
d'Annunzio and his legionaries, who continued to hold Fiume in defiance of 
the Entente governments and the League of Nations. The treaty of Eapallo 
was decided upon at a conference at Santa Margherita Ligure, which ended 
on November 10. Although the Italian parliament ratified the treaty by a 
substantial majority, d'Annunzio refused to accept it, and declared war on 
his own country. He was ousted by the Italian army on Christmas eve. 



550 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

divergence in the policies of Great Britain and France in 
the Near East and towards Germany, and of the with- 
drawal of Italy from an active part in the Near East and 
from supporting France against Germany. Nitti resigned, 
failed in an attempt to form a new cabinet, and was suc- 
ceeded on June 9 by the veteran Giolitti, who announced 
that the object of his foreign policy would be *'to insure 
definite and complete peace for Italy and the whole of 
Europe, in order to achieve which we must, without delay, 
establish friendly relations with all other peoples, and, 
without restrictions, resume normal relations even with 
the Russian government." 

The three powers agreed upon the terms of the treaty 
which the Constantinople Turks later signed at Sevres,^ 
and divided the mandates, Syria and Cilicia going to 
France, Adalia and Ehodes to Italy, and Mesopotamia, 
including Mosul, and Palestine to Great Britain. France 
and Italy agreed to let Great Britain guard the Straits, 
and thus virtually control the Constantinople region. 

Lloyd George and Nitti had wanted the Germans to be 
invited to San Remo, and bitterly opposed the intention of 
France to use the indemnity to prevent the economic re- 
habilitation of central Europe. But, as Millerand had 
given in on Lloyd George's Near Eastern claims and on 
Nitti 's demand for a free hand to reopen trade relations 
with Russia, he was able to secure the pledge of his col- 
leagues that no revision of the treaty was contemplated 
and that France would be supported in insisting upon a 
strict and literal fulfilment of the treaty of Versailles. A 
note was sent to Germany summoning her to disarm by 
destroying war materials and reducing her army, and to 
begin paying reparations by huge deliveries of coal. The 
German government was ordered to send delegates to Spa 
on May 25, ready to submit a plan for meeting the demands 
of the Allies. 

^ See pp. 431-433. 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 551 

France, on the other hand, had not gained the support 
of Great Britain and Italy against Germany without con- 
cessions in another quarter than Turkey and Russia. 
The invitation to Spa was the first admission on the part 
of France of the advisabihty of discussing the fulfilment 
of treaty terms with Germany; the threatening note to 
Germany contained a clause assuring her that it was not 
the intention of the Allied powers to annex any portion 
of German territory and that ''in cases where the German 
government was faced with unavoidable difficulties the 
Allied governments would not necessarily insist upon 
literal interpretation of the treaty terms"; and France 
agreed to refrain from again taking coercive measures 
without the consent and cooperation of the other two 
powers. 

On April 24 a secret oil agreement was signed at San 
Remo by British and French delegates, providing for an 
equal division of interests and exploitation in Rumania and 
for a quarter interest to France in Mesopotamia and a 
quarter interest in Anglo-Persian oil piped to the Medi- 
terranean through territory under French mandate in re- 
turn for the provision by France of pipe lines and branch 
railways for the movement of British oil through her 
spheres of influence to the Mediterranean. On November 
20 Secretary Colby protested against the San Remo agree- 
ment and declared that the United States refused to recog- 
nize the establishment of a British oil monopoly in Meso- 
potamia and other mandated territories. This protest 
was made after the British government had denied the 
existence of the monopoly and the United States govern- 
ment had found evidence to the contrary. Instead of 
acknowledging American rights, the British entered into 
a new secret convention with the French on December 23, 
1920, confirming the previous agreement and excluding 
the United States and other powers from the possibility 
of working profitably ante-bellum concessions in Mesopo- 



552 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

tamia, let alone of acquiring and developing further ones.^ 
On April 29 Lloyd George told the House of Commons 
that the German ministers were to come to Spa prepared 
to make definite proposals concerning the method by which 
they intended to pay, how large an annuity they were able 
to give, and to explain how they were planning to complete 
the work of disarmament and bring the war criminals to 
trial. But it was patent that the Entente powers were not 
agreed themselves upon the amount of the indemnity they 
intended to ask and the proportionate division of the sums 
to be received from Germany. Every critic of the treaty 
of Versailles had pointed out the absurdity of attempting 
to get any considerable payment out of Germany until she 
knew just how much she was expected to pay. During the 
San Remo discussion Millerand had refused to agree upon 
the principle of fixing a lump sum. Consequently, a new 
conference was arranged at Hythe on May 15 to discuss 
the program for the Spa meeting. The French claim as 
preferential creditor in the distribution of the indemnity 
was admitted, and it was agreed that there should be no 
discussion of treaty revision at Spa. France succeeded in 
raising the amount of the indemnity from the British fig- 
ure of 100,000,000,000 to 120,000,000,000 francs. The Hythe 
conference gave the Entente powers for the first time a 
financial program ; but it provoked Poincare, the president 
of the Reparations Commission, to resign his position on 
the ground that the premiers had usurped one of the most 
important functions assigned to the commission. The 
treaty of Versailles had provided that the Reparations 
Commission decide the total indemnity after two years of 
examination of German resources. 

The attitude of the French in regard to the size of the 
indemnity and of the Italians and the Rumanians in regard 
to their share of it necessitated further preliminary con- 

* The text of the two secret agreements is Riven hv H. Woodhouse in 
Current History (New York, January, 1922), pages 653-656. 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 553 

ferences at Boulogne and Brussels, where statesmen 
haggled like pawnbrokers and concessions were made that 
common sense knew threatened to defeat the hope of keep- 
ing alive the goose to lay golden eggs. Italy and Eumania 
refused to be satisfied with claims to indemnity against the 
bankrupt Hapsburg empire. Italy held out for 20 per cent, 
of the German indemnity, and agreed at Brussels to admit 
the French lump sum of 150,000,000,000 francs only when 
her delegates were solemnly promised a higher proportion 
of the indemnity than had been allotted them in earlier 
conferences.^ 

The Spa conference opened on July 5, and marked the 
abandonment of the consistent policy of the victors since 
the armistice of treating with Germany oiily by written 
notes ending in peremptory threats of force. For the first 
time German statesmen were able to discuss questions 
orally. The conference lasted eleven days, and ended in 
an agreement that added to the obligations Germany had 
assumed at Versailles. Germany bound herself under pen- 
alties to deliver two million tons of coal per month, to hand 
over live stock to the victors, to proceed to the punishment 
of war criminals, and to insist upon the surrender of arms 
in the hands of civilians and withdraw arms from the 
security police. By January 1, 1921, the army was to be 
reduced to the figure stipulated in the treaty of Versailles. 
On the other hand, the Allies agreed to lend Germany large 
sums to build up her disorganized industries. France was 
skeptical of the results of the agreement, but Lloyd George 
declared that the road from Spa was the road to reality. 

While the Spa conference was in session news came of 

^At Spa, before going into the conference with Germany, the powers 
finally agreed upon the following distribution of the indemnity annuities: 
Trance, 52 per cent,; Great Britain, 22; Italy, 10; Belgium, 8; Serbia, 5; 
all the rest, 3. Belgiiim was also permitted to transfer her entire war debt 
to Germany, and her priority was recognized on the first 2,000,000,000 gold 
marks. But the conferees were still at loggerheads over the amount of the 
indemnity, and it was decided to let this run over until a later date. The 
treaty gave until May 1, 1921 — there was still a year of grace! 



554 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

the collapse of the Polish campaign against so^aet Russia, 
and during the summer conferences were held at Lympne 
and Hythe to decide upon the policy of the Entente towards 
Poland and Russia. It was an embarrassing situation ; for 
France was strongly backing Poland, and yet the British 
sense of fairness could not but react against flagrantly 
adopting two weights and two measures in dealing mth 
Poland and Russia. There had been no intervention in 
favor of Russia when the Polish armies went far beyond 
the line set by the Supreme Council. Could the Alhes 
stultify themselves by calling upon Russia to halt when the 
Poles were losing? Was it to be ''heads I win, tails you 
lose"? At Hythe, despite the urging of Marshal Foch, it 
was decided to help Poland with munitions but not to send 
Allied troops to Warsaw. At Ljonpne Lloyd George per- 
suaded the Allies to agree that if Poland accepted the terms 
of soviet Russia they would not intervene to prevent or 
upset the arrangement. Only if Russia insisted upon terms 
*'not consistent with the existence of Poland as a free 
nation" were the Allies to assist Poland. But not even 
then would troops be sent. Aid would be given in equip- 
ment and military advice, by naval pressure, by interna- 
tional economic boycott, and by sending supplies to General 
Wrangel, who was leading a counter-revolutionary move- 
ment in south Russia. Great Britain and France could not 
see alike on this question. The British government was at 
the time negotiating a trade agreement with Russia. "When 
the fortune of arms turned, and Poles drove back the 
Bolshevists, the French, without consulting their allies, 
recognized General Wrangel as a belligerent, and thus gave 
the Russians one more reason to hate their former allj^ 
On November 11 the French and British governments 
announced a new plan for settling the amount and method 
of collection of the German indemnity — a plan that would 
allow the Reparations Commission to play, figuratively at 
least, the role assigned to it by the treaty of Versailles. 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 555 

The commission was to choose experts who were to meet 
at Brussels to hear representatives of the German govern- 
ment and then report to the commission; members of the 
German cabinet were to confer with the Alhed premiers at 
Geneva when the Reparations Commission should have 
acted upon the Brussels report ; and then in a final session 
at Paris the Reparations Commission would consider the 
Brussels and Geneva recommendations, and fix a lump sum 
for the Germans to pay and a sliding scale of the annuities. 
The Brussels conference (December 16-21), being con- 
fined to experts, was successful. The Allied delegates were 
impressed with Germany's intention to do the best she 
could, and recommended that she be allowed 3,000,000,000 
gold marks of credits for food and about the same for raw 
materials. Upon the basis of credits to make possible the 
resumption of German production and of 100,000,000,000 
gold marks as the total indemnity, the Allied experts re- 
ported that the problem of paying the indemnity was cap- 
able of solution. 

But political considerations again entered into the situ- 
ation. The French press recalled that when the British and 
French premiers were discussing how aid was to be given 
to Poland at Lympne the previous summer, Lloyd George, 
in consideration of Marshal Foch withdrawing his de- 
mand for troops to aid the Poles, had consented to make 
a joint declaration to the effect that ^'the suffering 
and economic ruin resulting from the war should not be 
borne by the nations who did not cause it." The French 
now insisted that the British make good their frequently 
reiterated promises to make Germany pay. A new con- 
ference opened in Paris on January 24, 1921, which re- 
vealed to the world the hopeless divergence between the 
French and British points of view. 

In the discussion of disarmament Foch and others de- 
clared that Germany had failed to fulfil the disarmament 
clauses of the Versailles treaty, and that the danger was 



556 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

so great that France would be justified, as a miltary pre- 
caution alone, in occuping the Ruhr Valley. Lloyd George 
answered that the French fears were not justified. France 
demanded that the indemnity be fixed at 400,000,000,000 
gold marks. Lloyd George answered that Germany could 
not pay this amount. M. Doumer contradicted the British 
premier, explaining that it was reasonable to expect 17,000,- 
000,000 francs per annum from German exports, of which 
12,000,000,000 could be taken by the Reparations Commis- 
sion. Lloyd George said that this calculation was absurd, 
because it ignored the factor of raw materials essential for 
manufactures. How could Germany pay for her raw ma- 
terials, coal, labor, etc., on the basis of retaining five 
billions out of seventeen billions ? The Italians stood with 
the British. 

On JanusiTy 27 ex-Premier Millerand, who had now be- 
come president of France, intervened to end the dead- 
lock, and the plan of the Boulogne conference was substi- 
tuted as the basis of discussion which provided for an in- 
demnity of 100,000,000,000 gold marks, which, with interest, 
would make a lump sum of 250,000,000,000 gold marks in 
annuities. It was decided that Germany should pay in 
forty-two annual instalments 226,000,000,000 gold marks, 
and for the same period an annual tax of 12 per cent, on 
her exports. If these conditions were not fulfilled, the 
Allies should have the right to seize German customs, im- 
pose taxes on the Rhineland and military penalties, and 
exercise financial control over Gennany at the first de- 
fault. But as the treaty had set thirty years as the limit 
of Germany's servitude, and this plan provided for twelve 
additional years, it was necessary to secure Germany's con- 
sent. The Berhn government was ordered to send experts 
to renew the Brussels discussions on the basis of the Paris 
agreement, and to be ready to meet the Allies in London 
on February 28. 

The London conference failed to arrive at any agree- 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 557 

ment, whereupon the Entente powers and Belgium threat- 
ened to levy an import tax of 50 per cent, on German 
goods entering their countries, and to force Germany to 
pay the tax, which would be pooled and divided as indem- 
nity. Dr. Simons then told the Entente statesmen that 
such a tax would mean either that the German exporters 
would add this amount to their price and the consumers 
eventually pay it, or that German trade would go to the 
wall. Despite the announcement of the Allies that they 
would collect the customs tariffs in the Rhineland and of 
the French government that the Euhr coal region would 
be seized if the German government did not consent to 
the Paris decision and pay down 12,000,000,000 gold marks 
on or before May 1st, the final German answer was refusal. 
The delegates left the London conference with the whole 
question still up in the air. 

At the last moment, yielding to an ultimatum as she had 
done in signing the treaty, Germany prevented the occu- 
pation of the Ruhr Valley by agreeing on May 11 to pay 
the indemnity, and the initial sums stipulated were trans- 
ferred to the credit of the Reparations Commission. 

But in the summer the League Council, which met at 
San Sebastian from July 30 to August 5, felt that economic 
conditions in Europe, and in fact throughout the world, 
were growing worse, and that some form of international 
cooperation was imperative. A financial conference was 
called to meet at Brussels on September 24, to which 
invitations were sent to every nation except Turkey and 
Russia. Delegates from thirty-six countries met under the 
presidency of ex-President Ador of Switzerland. An unof- 
ficial American delegate explained that the United States 
could not participate in the conference, and would not be 
able, in fact, to take active steps to aid European rehabili- 
tation until old scores were marked off and a spirit of 
solidarity was developed. The most important results of 
the Brussels conference were the revelation of the fact 



558 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

that the Paris treaties were largely responsible for the 
economic and financial chaos, and the announcement by 
M. ter Meulen, of Holland, of a practicable plan for aiding 
countries on the verge of collapse. He proposed to estab- 
lish in these countries a reservoir of collateral to be drawir 
upon if necessary to cover credits for imports, under the 
supervision of a commission of financial experts appointed 
by the League of Nations. The commission would assess 
the value of the collateral offered, and the government of 
the borrower's country would issue bonds, secured by the 
collateral, and running for from five to ten years, with 
interest. The commission and the governments would 
thus arrange credits for private individuals. 

Beheving that, while the United States should notibecome 
involved in European political questions, it was still in- 
cumbent upon us to lead in restoring the world to normal 
conditions, President Harding, shortly after his inaugura- 
tion, invited nine powers to discuss the limitation of arma- 
ments and the problems of the Pacific at a conference to 
assemble in Washington on November 12, 1921. The 
agenda of the Washington conference excluded the ques- 
tions uppermost in the minds of Europeans. But the 
American government believed that if a start were made 
in improving international relations by the hmitation of 
naval armaments and by ending for a time the possibility 
of war arising from causes in the Far East, further con- 
ferences would deal with land armaments and other sources 
of international friction. The Washington conference 
ended on February 6, 1922, with treaties and agreements 
to its credit that were a distinct step forward.^ 

In the meantime, however, the Entente powers had to 
continue discussing European questions. Premiers Lloyd 
George and Briand met in London on December 21, 1921, 
to go over the whole field of German disarmament, repara- 
tions, and the economic restoration of Europe. A week 

>See Chapter XLIX, 



CONFERENCES: LONDON TO GENOA (1919-1922) 559 

later, at a meeting of the French and British financiers 
in Paris, a corporation was organized to finance the resto- 
ration of Europe, to whose capital the United States and 
Germany were to be invited to subscribe equally with Great 
Britain and France. 

On January 6, 1922, the Entente premiers, the Repara- 
tions Commission, and a big delegation of experts met at 
Cannes. The Germans were asked to come to Paris, and 
hold themselves in readiness to be called at Cannes if 
needed. Lloyd George and Briand negotiated a defensive 
alliance between Great Britain and France, the text of 
which had hardly been agreed upon when Briand was called 
back to Paris to meet opposition in the Chamber of Depu- 
ties that led to his resignation. The Reparations Commis- 
sion agreed to a provisional delay in indemnity payments, 
without considering Germany in default, contingent upon 
the payment of 31,000,000 gold marks every ten days. 
Although they refused to recognize the fact officially, the 
members of the commission realized that the German gov- 
ernment had come to the end of its credits, and could not 
be expected to pay the annuities imposed by the ultimatum 
of May, 1921.^ Upon the suggestion of Italy, it was agreed 
that a general conference should be called to meet at Genoa 
in the first week of March, ''of an economic and financial 
nature, of all the European powers, Germany, Austria, 
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia included." The opening 
date, at the request of France, was postponed until April 
10. The United States was also invited, but declined to 
participate on the ground that the conference would in- 
evitably deal with the internal political problems of Europe, 
in the solution of which the United States did not propose 
to become involved. 

The text of the Anglo-French treaty provided that in 

* Walter Eathenau, who had shown more willingness than most German 
statesmen to meet the demands of the Entente, declared that Germany could 
pay 500,000,000 gold marks in cash and 1,000,000,000 in kind annually, but 
not more. This amount fell far short of the Entente figures. 



560 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

case of '^ direct and unprovoked aggression against the 
territory of France by Germany" the alliance would be- 
come operative; that Great Britain would act in concert 
with France to maintain the permanent neutraUzation of 
the Rhineland, and also to prevent Germany from taking 
military, navaj, or aerial measures incompatible with the 
treaty of Versailles. The treaty was to run for ten years, 
but did not bind any of the dominions of the British Empire. 
The alliance was bitterly criticized in the Chamber of Depu- 
ties, after the formation of a new ministry under former 
President Poincare, and it was amended to make the guar- 
anty reciprocal. It was argued in the Chamber that the 
alliance should have bound Great Britain definitely to the 
French policy in Poland and to the strict execution of all 
the terms of the treaty of Versailles. 

France went to Genoa with the stipulation, as to previous 
conferences, that the revision of the treaty of Versailles 
should not be discussed, and that there should be no recog- 
nition of soviet Russia that did not provide for the ac- 
knowledgment of the foreign debt of czarist Russia by her 
new rulers. 



CHAPTER XLIX 

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE AND THE LIMITATION 
OF ARMAMENTS (1921-1922) 

I WAS finding that putting down one's impressions of 
the permanent results of the Washington conference 
was no easy task when my twelve-year-old burst into the 
room. ''I want you to read my history paper," she said. 
' ' The teacher gave it back for me to correct. ' ' A distracted 
eye wandered down the sheets where events in medieval 
history were summed up with disconcerting conciseness, 
and suddenly fell upon this statement: ''The idea was a 
good one, but they tried to do it in a crazy way." This 
seemed to be a whole answer. "What was the question, 
Christine r' I asked. ''Oh, they wanted to know all about 
the crusades." 

Centuries from now school-children may dismiss the 
American crusade for limitation of armaments in one illu- 
minating sentence. They will have the advantage of per- 
spective and of being unaffected by the momentous event. 
But what can we say of the publicists and the statesmen 
of 1922 who make use of Christine's terseness and scorn 
to consign to oblivion the Washington conference? Was 
it an episode between San Eemo and Cannes, between Spa 
and Genoa? Was it no more than the same old gang in a 
new place, filled with the same old notions and going 
through the same old motions? None has denied that the 
idea was a good one; but did anything come of it? Will 
lii story say that the Washington conference accomplished 
the objects for which it was called? The well-being of the 
present generation throughout the world depends so com- 
pletely upon a long period of peace that we caji not afford 

561 



662 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

to wait for the proper perspective in discussing and 
attempting to estimate the results of the Washington 
conference. 

In the first place, we note an immediate and unqualified 
step forward in bettering international relations ; for pub- 
lic opinion in the most heavily armed countries admits, in 
regard to the proposal to limit armaments, that ''the idea 
is a good one." The march of human progress is never 
really interrupted. We keep moving, most of the time at 
snail's pace ; but occasionally there is a jump. It is curious 
that, while war seems to breed hatred and bitterness, even 
among allies, the inherent good-will of mankind, inhibited 
during the conflict, shows itself in overflowing measure 
afterwards. Politicians, striving to retain their leadership 
by keeping alive war passions, are out of tune with the 
sentiment of the people, and if they do not change their 
attitude they are discarded. Since the World War fishing 
in troubled waters has become a dangerous sport, and only 
superficial observers believe that statesmen who dehber- 
ately build upon the foundation of hatred and suspicion of 
their nation towards other nations are not riding for a fall. 

The Paris conference assumed the permanence of cer- 
tain factors in the world situation that were transient: 
hatred of Germany; military impotence of Germany; lack 
of dependence of German industries upon private initia- 
tive; solidarity of interests among "the Five Principal 
Allied and Associated Powers"; willingness of the \dctori- 
ous peoples to give their lives and money to pursue through- 
out the world policies similar to those that Germany had 
pursued. Upon these false assumptions were based the 
treaty of Versailles and the four other treaties; and the 
original conception of the League of Nations was modified 
under their influence. But it was soon discovered that the 
peoples who had fought through years, sustained by the 
idea that they could make the world a decent place to live in, 
sincerely wanted what they had fought for. They refused 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 563 

to believe that there is no substitute for force, and they 
were apathetic over the spoils of the war. The statesmen 
thought, or at all events said, that this was due to war 
weariness and burdens of taxation. But they were wrong. 
They did not understand, nor could they break, the spell 
that their own war speeches had cast. Had they not told 
the Germans that right would triumph over might? Now 
that Germany was vanquished, were not the victors in 
a position to cut down on might and let right have an 
inning? 

During the World War the peoples of western Europe 
and America had come to look upon Germany and her war 
lord as responsible for the great evils in international 
relations : violating treaties ; bullying weak nations ; deny- 
ing freedom to subject peoples; initiating the attempt to 
partition China; seeking colonial aggrandizement at the 
expense of other powers; using unfair methods in inter- 
national commerce and the carrying trade ; and leading the 
way in competitive naval and land armaments. The fact 
or degree of Germany's responsibility for these evils does 
not enter into the question. What matters is that hun- 
dreds of millions were brought by a skilful propaganda to 
condemn Germany because of them. The propagandists 
had in mind, in giving an excellent education in interna- 
tional affairs, the condemnation of Germany; and they 
probably did not see that the permanent result of calling 
attention to the evils would be the condemnation of the evils 
themselves. 

The men who imposed upon Germany and her associates 
terms of peace that perpetuated the old causes for wars 
and created new ones undoubtedly believed that they were 
expressing the just resentment, and defending and advanc- 
ing the interests, of their respective peoples. Territories 
and indemnities and economic advantages they exacted 
from the defeated nations on the triple plea of punish- 
ments, reparations, and guaranties. But they bound over 



564 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

their enemies to keep the peace without promising to keep 
the peace themselves. On September 27, 1918, President 
Wilson summed up the case of the people versus their 
leaders in words to the prophetic character of which his 
own fate bears tragic witness: 

**It is the peculiarity of this great war that, while states- 
men seemed to cast about for definitions of their purpose 
and have sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their 
point of view, the thought of the mass of men, whom states- 
men are supposed to instruct and lead, has grown more and 
more unclouded, more and more certain of what it is that 
they are fighting for. National purposes have fallen more 
and more into the background; and the common purpose 
of enlightened mankind has taken their place. The coun- 
sels of plain men have become more simple and straight- 
forward and more unified than the counsels of sophisticated 
men of affairs, who still retain the impression that they 
are playing a game of power and playing for high stakes. 
That is why I have said that this is a people's war, not a 
statesmen's. Statesmen must follow the clarified common 
thought or be broken. . . . The world does not want terms 
of peace; it wishes the final triumph of justice and fair 
dealing." 

At Paris the Entente statesmen spoke for their o^vn 
nations, and had in mind a European settlement ; and when 
problems outside Europe were before them, the solutions 
they proposed were suggested by the sole consideration 
of how certain European nations were to benefit by them. 
This is why Japanese public opinion was indifferent to the 
Paris negotiations and settlements, and why American pub- 
lic opinion received without enthusiasm the results of the 
Paris deliberations, repudiated the treaties, and refused to 
join the League of Nations. Had we not entered what we 
thought was a world war in order to secure a world peace 1 
Mr. Harding and his advisers did not misinterpret the sen- 
timent of the American people. The ^\allingness to cooper- 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 565 

ate with the rest of the world was not less after November 
2, 1920, than before. The call to the Washington confer- 
ence and the specific proposals of Secretary Hughes for the 
limitation of naval armaments expressed the eagerness of 
the United States to make a fresh effort to establish a 
durable world peace. 

President Harding knew how to ''follow the clarified 
common thought" better than President Wilson did. 
Ideology does not long hold ''the thought of the mass of 
men." It is too prolific, too complicated, and deals too 
much with the unknown and the untried. A definite plan 
for attaining a concrete object will receive the indorsement 
of public opinion and can be put to trial with a prospect 
of success ; but the sponsorship of a mass of ideas does not 
appeal to a mass of men. When I came to the United 
States in the summer of 1919 to follow the treaty fight at 
Washington, I put before my young son for his first meal 
in New York dishes dear to the American heart. He re- 
fused to eat most of them, and my astonishment was 
greatest when he left untouched his watermelon. "It's 
good, Lloyd," I urged; "do try to eat it." He shook his 
head with finality. "There is too much of it," he said. 
So thought the American people about the treaty of Ver- 
sailles and the League of Nations, and so, on sober second 
thought, thought they about Mr. Wilson's fourteen points 
and subsequent discourses. 

The invitation to the Washington conference was accom- 
panied by the proposed agenda: (1) limitation of arma- 
ments and (2) problems arising from the changes in the 
balance of power in the Pacific and the Asiatic countries 
bordering on the Pacific. It was intimated in diplomatic 
correspondence, and also in public statements, that the 
practicable basis of discussion would be the limitation of 
the naval armaments of Great Britain, the United States, 
and Japan, and that it was for this reason that the con- 
ference had to deal with problems of the Pacific and of 



566 ' AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

China. The fact that there was a Washington conference 
showed that President Harding and his associates believed 
that the Paris conference had failed to create the condi- 
tions and the machinery that would lead to the abandon- 
ment of competitive armaments. It proved, too, that the 
statesmen of the nations associated with us in the war were 
convinced that the United States was an indispensable 
factor in world politics, and that public opinion in Entente 
countries demanded the acceptance of the American offer 
to make an effort for disarmament outside the League of 
Nations, 

Both in his introductory speech on November 12 and in 
his closing speech on February 6, however, President Hard- 
ing declared that the transcendent objects of the conference 
were to pronounce war '^utterly futile" and to ''challenge 
the sanity of competitive preparation for each other's de- 
struction." The method of achieving this was to be ''a 
world opinion made ready to grant justice precisely as it 
exacts it." And he added: ''Justice is better served in 
conferences of peace than in conflicts at arms." Here we 
have the key-note of what the Washington conference at- 
tempted to establish as a new guiding principle in inter- 
national relations. Because experience demonstrated the 
"folly" of the solution of international differences of opin- 
ion by arms and the "utter futility" of war, diplomacy 
should adopt the preventive measure of settling disputes 
in conferences among the interested powers. But a con- 
ference must be "ready to grant justice precisely as it 
exacts it. " ^ 

While admitting that "the idea was a good one," cor- 
respondents and editorial writers have by no means 
agreed that the conference was a success. The hyper- 
critical and the cynical and the satirical have advanced 

* The Harding program at the Washington conference demanded justice 
for China, for example, as a means of compounding the rivalry among the 
powers over China. 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 567 

different grounds on which to affirm that the conference did 
not get beyond the point of agreeing that the limitation of 
armaments is a good idea. We are told that the experts 
of the leading naval powers recognized that the day of 
capital ships has passed, and that limitation of capital 
ships, even though it meant scrapping new ships, would 
have no serious effect upon the naval strength of the powers 
concerned. At the same time, the governments were saved 
the embarrassment of finding large sums of money to build 
implements of war of whose efficacy they were in doubt. 
When it came to smaller craft, which may again come into 
favor because they can more easily evade the torpedoes of 
submarines and the bombs of airplanes, there was no agree- 
ment. And how can we talk about a fixed ratio of naval 
strength when we have no means of checking up on one 
another in the construction of airplanes and submarines 
whose value in naval warfare is still xl As for poison 
gases and rules of maritime warfare, the shades of the two 
Hague conferences and the declaration of London haunt 
us. And see how pleased the Chinese are over the four- 
power treaty! The agreements among the powers con- 
cerning Morocco, Persia, Siam, Korea, Egypt, and China 
have always started out with a preamble about the main- 
tenance of *' independence and integrity." 

But there is a radical difference between the Washington 
conference and the international assemblies with which the 
comparisons are made. Are we not justified in entertain- 
ing the reasonable hope that the Washington conference, 
after many disappointments, was the beginning of a new 
era in international relations'? 

The Hague conferences were held at a time when govern- 
ments had academic notions, and public opinion no notions 
at all, about the horrors, the loss of life, the financial 
burden, the destruction of values, and the economic dis- 
asters of twentieth-century warfare. We had not yet bowed 
down ourselves to and served our Frankensteins in heaven 



568 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the 
earth. At Paris in 1919 the war was still too close upon 
us for any other thought to prevail than that of punishing 
our enemies, reimbursing ourselves for our losses, and 
rewarding ourselves for having won the war. "W^ien re- 
minded that we had claimed to be fighting a war to end 
war, we were ready to bring this great object into harmony 
with the gratification of our resentment and of our desire 
for spoils by asserting that peace would be secure when the 
vanquished (and those who contemplated their fate) 
learned that war did not pay. 

During the three years between the collapse of Germany 
and the opening of the Washington conference the victors 
also learned that war did not pay, that world peace could 
not be built upon punitive treaties, and that the elimination 
of Germany from world politics and her disarmament did 
not do away with international crises arising from im- 
perialistic ambitions and with competitive armaments. 
This was no surprise to statesmen of the old school; they 
had not expected the game to stop when Germany dropped 
out. But it was a surprise to the ''masses of men." Pub- 
lic opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, in the British 
dominions, and in Japan demanded that an honest trial be 
made of the conference idea to settle disputes and to put 
an end to competitive armaments. The conviction behind 
this demand made itself felt at Washington throughout the 
conference. Day after day there rang in the cars of the 
delegates the fiat of public opinion in the form of a judg- 
ment, a plea, and a warning. The "clarified common 
thought" was this: 

"We now know that war is too horrible to be considered 
soberly and deliberately prepared for. 

"Another war may mean the end of civilization. 

"Do not count on us to give our lives and our money to 
settle international disputes by fighting. 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 569 

''The defeat of Germany and the terms of peace imposed 
upon her and her allies have not removed the old causes 
of war. 

"Now, you statesmen do something about it; you will 
have to succeed by conference, or we shall turn to other 
leaders." 

"When we realize that the conferees at Washington acted 
under the impulsion of public opinion, unique in its enlight- 
enment and its determination, we see how absurd is the 
attempt of critics to throw cold water upon this conference 
by invoking the failures of previous conferences. I went 
to Washington in a skeptical frame of mind, and, after the 
initial impression of the simple ceremony at Arlington and 
of the dramatic opening session of the conference wore otf, 
my skepticism returned. I had attended so many con- 
ferences where noble declarations of purpose had proved 
irrelevant to the business in hand or had become denatured 
in the bitter conflict of divergent ambitions that I lost 
two good months in trying to satisfy myself that I had 
been right in predicting failure. But the statesmen did not 
run true to form! Confronted by Secretary Hughes with 
the principle of compromise in renunciation, the time- 
honored principle of compromise in aggrandizement was 
abandoned. Then it dawned upon me that a new era in 
international relations had begun. The World War had 
been a cataclysm, and mankind had learned a lesson. Once 
more in a great crisis the masses of men proved to be the 
masters of men. 

Will the new era materialize? Many good things get a 
start and somehow are nipped in the bud. Few converted 
in revivals stick; and when the devil is sick, becoming a 
monk is not an unattractive suggestion. The memory of 
the horrors of the war will grow dim ; a new generation of 
potential fighting-men will be ready to try its hand at the 
fascinating and glorious game of its fathers ; and the money 



570 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

squandered between 1914 and 1922 will be paid off or writ- 
ten off. ' ' Men will figbt, ' ' you are sententiously reminded, 
*'and you can't -change human nature. Look at the chil- 
dren in your own nursery, and the next time they all set 
up a yell at once, just use common sense, and admit that 
nations are like children. If they have nothing to fight 
about, they will invent reasons; and if they have no 
weapons, they will make them." 

This is the argument of the man who is half baked in 
his knowledge of both history and human nature, and it is 
precisely because he is allowed to get away with fallacious 
half-truths that public opinion in civilized countries did not 
long ago put an end to the caveman and outlaw conception 
of international relations. In the forests of Germany our 
ancestors used to lie in wait for one another with stone 
axes, and every man carried his with him. The population 
did not increase fast. But the more we perfected our 
weapons the less ready we were to use them. We com- 
bined, forming communities and nations, so that we would 
not have to be thinking about our security all the time, but 
could delegate the fighting business to those who liked that 
sort of thing. Instead of being a succession of wars and a 
constant appeal to force, the progress of civilization is the 
steady development of the substitution of reason for force 
in human relationships. The history of our own country 
strikingly illustrates the determination of men to make 
security of life and property depend upon the reign of law 
and not upon the agility of the individual with his six- 
shooter. The wild west disappeared as soon as men by 
common consent were organized *^to grant justice precisely 
as they exacted it." 

The scramble of European nations for world markets 
was prompted by a miraculous development of industries 
and means of transportation. When the European peoples 
began to think that security -and prosperity were contin- 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 571 

gent upon beating the other fellow to it all over the world, 
and that the only means of doing this was the use of 
superior force against Asiatic and African peoples and 
also against one another, primitive human nature reas- 
serted itself. Colonial rivalry was the prelude to the danse 
macabre of the bayonet-pierced, the bullet-ridden, the shell- 
torn, the gassed, and the influenza- and famine-stricken 
from Flanders to the steppes of Eussia. Conscription, 
airplanes, submarines, and long-range guns brought the 
world back to the Stone Age : each man was lying in wait 
for his neighbor. 

A French journalist shook his head when he saw Presi- 
dent Harding leading his people in the Lord's Prayer at 
Arlington Cemetery. ''C'est toujours la meme cliose! 
Voire Harding est un pasteur protestant comme V autre.'' 
"Within twenty-four hours he shook his head again at 
Memorial Hall, and added Hughes to his Ust of Protestant 
pastors who seemed to be in charge of American foreign 
policy. Mr. Harding, appealing to God, put himself in Mr. 
Wilson 's class ; while Mr. Hughes, calmly offering to scrap 
battle-ships and asking the other powers to follow suit, 
outwilsoned Wilson and outhardinged Harding. My 
French colleague had written glowing editorials before the 
conference predicting a deadlock between the United States 
and Great Britain on the naval question and between the 
United States and Japan on the Chinese question. France, 
he pointed out, would play the profitable Bismarckian role 
of honest broker. Go-between and arbiter, France would 
help the three powers in turn to advance their particular 
interests, and as a reward they would all agree to let France 
have what she wanted. Wilson had proved an impossible 
man to deal with, for he had honestly striven for peace 
and not for the aggrandizement of the United States. It 
was a shock to find Harding and Hughes taking it for 
granted that the other powers had come to Washington to 



572 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

act together for the common weaL A new spirit must pre- 
vail and a new language must be learned. A new spirit 
did prevail and a new language was learned.^ 

It was hard for statesmen trained to measure success by 
aggrandizement to think of success in the terms of renun- 
ciation. The first steps were falteringly and reluctantly 
taken. But the fact remains that they were taken. The 
5-5-3-1.75-1.75 ratio for capital ships agreed upon among 
the naval powers, which puts an end for ten years to com- 
petitive naval construction and entails the scrapping of 
ships already launched or building, is a precedent of ines- 
timable value, as is the surrender of leases in China. 
Avaunt the critics who tell us that these decisions mean 
nothing or who belittle their importance by pointing out 
that they do not go far enough! Each figure is the result 
of a genuine sacrifice on the part of the power that accepted 
it, a sacrifice of a kind that has never before been willingly 
made in an international conference. The United States 
swallowed her pride when she renounced the largest na^'y 
in the world, which was within her grasp; Great Britain 
when she renounced the supremacy of the sea, which she 
had held for centuries; Japan when she renounced the 

^ None of the treaties went as far as had been hoped ; but, despite the 
necessity for constant compromise, each one established a new principle in 
international relations and opened the way for further negotiations. The 
treaties recommended by the Washington conference were: 

(1) A five-power treaty involving the scrapping of sixty-eight capital ships, 
the restriction of the tonnage of navies and of fortification in the Far East, 
and a ten-year naval holiday. 

(2) A five-power treaty outlawing the use of submarines as an agency 
of attack on merchant-ships and prohibiting the use of poison gas. 

(3) A nine-power treaty stabilizing the conditions in the Far East and 
reiterating the open-door principle in regard to China. 

(4) A nine-power treaty making a beginning of the division of Chinese 
customs, abolishing foreign post-offices, and releasing the Chinese govern- 
ment from the obligation to keep funds lying idle in foreign banks. 

(5) A four-power treaty binding the principal Pacific powers to respect 
one another's territory in the Pacific and to confer when the peace of the 
Pacific is threatened (abrogating the existing Anglo-Japanese treaty). 

(6) Agreement between Japan and China for the restoration of the German 
lease in Shantung, coupled with declaration of Iho willingness of Great Britain 
to renounce the lease of Wei-Hai-Wei and of France to renounce the lease of 
Kwang-Chau-Wan. 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 573 

completion of a ship-building program that the nation had 
been taught to believe was indispensable to its dignity and 
security; France when she renounced the privilege of ever 
attempting to regain the glory that was hers before Tra- 
falgar ; and Italy when she renounced making a bid for the 
naval supremacy of the Mediterranean, which was a rea- 
sonable and feasible hope. It is beside the mark to explain 
these renunciations by stating that they represent the 
acknowledgment of an inevitable situation on the part of 
all the powers except the United States. The statesmen 
were guided by realities and not by force majeure. Fore- 
most among these realities were the impossibility of in- 
creasing taxation and the improbability of a new war bene- 
fiting any one. Pride yielded to common sense because all 
the powers were willing to sacrifice. 

If we were able to give reasons for believing that the 
Washington decisions will not serve as precedents and to 
assert that the Washington conference was an isolated in- 
ternational gathering, we should be justified in regarding 
it as a triumph of the English-speaking peoples in a con- 
spiracy to get an international acknowledgment of their 
world-wide hegemony and therefore be quit of the burden 
of having to hold by force what they had gained by force. 
And we should be justified in suspecting that Japan will 
interpret the agreements as giving her a free hand in 
Siberia and in northern and central China. But did not 
President Harding declare that the decisions were prece- 
dents and that the Washington conference was the begin- 
ning of a new method of settling international disputes? 
Mr. Harding still has three years, and probably seven, in 
an office that gives him the greatest power in the world as 
an initiator of plans for international undertakings. 
When other questions — perhaps some of the unsolved ques- 
tions of Washington — become acute and disturb the rela- 
tions between powers, will not the matters at issue be 
threshed out in a conference among all the powers affected 



574 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS 

by them? If we give reason a chance, reason will prevail 
over force. 

Whether the naval experts are in favor of capital ships 
or suggest the multiplication of other means of defense 
and offense, the scrapping of ships already built and the 
naval holiday of ten years will make exceedingly difficult 
the resumption of naval construction. Unless the next ten 
years fail to create ' ' a world opinion made ready to grant 
justice precisely as it exacts it," public opinion mil de- 
mand the renewal of an agreement that saves so much 
money, and, having gotten out of the habit of voting huge 
naval budgets, parliaments will fight shy of the responsi- 
bilities involved in abandoning the five-power treaty. On 
the other hand, if this world opinion is created, the limi- 
tation of naval armaments will be followed rapidly by the 
limitation of land armaments. 

But the conditional clause is all-important. The use of 
force to maintain law and order meets with universal ap- 
proval, and society has developed the unconscious instinct 
of siding with the agents of law and order. Moving-picture 
audiences may laugh at policemen, but if you have ever 
been arrested you know how instinctively hostile to the 
prisoner is the crowd. But the application of force is occa- 
sional and incidental in well ordered society, and the maj- 
esty of the law does not depend upon the numbers of those 
who enforce it and the quality of their weapons. Mass 
resistance of the law rarely, if ever, occurs, except when 
there has been an abuse of force. If those who hold in 
their hands power and wealth act fairly and decently, they 
do not need to arm to the teeth to make secure from attack 
their persons and their possessions. And even if they are 
unfair and indecent, they can go pretty far before some one 
up and whacks them. 

Why do international relations have to be different from 
internal relations? Beyond a police force to deal with 
malefactors, we provide no means for making secure our 



THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921-1922) 575 

lives and possessions. We presume that the people we 
meet are not thugs. Although thugs exist, we do not arm 
ourselves when we go for a walk, and few of us have fire- 
arms in our homes. Why do nations have to think of one 
another as thugs and provide means of defense accord- 
ingly? We have come to this sorry pass in international 
relations because we have been like dogs fighting over 
bones or pigs with both feet in the trough, unable to drink 
all the swill ourselves but with teeth sharp enough to keep 
other pigs out. The study of world politics proves that the 
amazing development of land armies by conscription and 
of competitive naval construction has followed the overseas 
expansion of Europe. 

To have and to hold was the motto of European diplo- 
macy that led the way to Armageddon. Titles were gained 
by force and maintained by force. One war-ship, landing 
a few sailors or marines, staked out a title. The deed was 
written and recorded by a punitive expedition. The prop- 
erty was developed by an army, which became a permanent 
garrison, and whose means of communication with the 
home-land had to be guarded by an ever-increasing fleet. 
Is it possible for the European powers, the United States, 
and Japan to continue to hold by any other means than 
force what was won by force? And does not history teach 
us that every colonial power, after it has made a colony 
or a protectorate by 'Opacifying" and extending its admin- 
istrative control over a weaker and therefore supposedly 
inferior people, has been apprehensive of hostile inten- 
tions on the part of other colonial powers? 

The abandonment of predatory foreign policies, well 
begun by the renunciation of leases in China, is a pre- 
requisite to permanent limitation of armaments. This will 
certainly be accomplished if the people can be made to see 
that economic imperialism has not paid expenses, and that 
large armies and navies never have had raison d'etre ex- 
cept as instruments of aggression. When the governments 



576 AN INTRODUCTION TO WOELD POLITICS 

of the great powers make up their minds to use the same 
standards of conduct in dealing with other peoples that 
they have long used in dealing with their own people, all 
the world can let everything go in land and naval arma- 
ments beyond the police forces. The way initiated at 
Washington was a ''crazy way" of working towards 
world peace only if the reign of law and order through- 
out the world is not what twentieth-century civihzation is 
striving for. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A COMPLETE list of source and secondary materials for the 
study of world politics would make a volume in itself. What 
I believed to be a brief list, with brief comments, was compiled; 
but I' find myself compelled to prune it down. Consequently, I 
have limited my bibliography to books that are actually on the 
shelves of my own library, and to which I have referred in writing 
this Introduction to World Politics. Not all of the books that were 
consulted are listed, but only those which it is believed will be of 
assistance to the general mass of students in this field. Original 
sources — official parliamentary papers and collections of documents 
and correspondence issued, or whose publication has been author- 
ized, by the various governments — are omitted. 

WORKING MATERIALS 

For maps I use The Times Survey Atlas and Gazetteer of tJie 
World (London, 1921), which is the most complete atlas, both as 
to maps and as to index of names, that has yet been published. It 
contains a transparent indexing frame, which enables one to put his 
finger immediately upon any of the hundred squares into which 
each page is divided for reference. Occasionally I find it necessary 
to refer to E. Ambrosius, Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas (Leip- 
zig, 1914), whose excellent Namenverzeichnis is in a very handy 
separate volume. The best small atlas published since the war is 
Putnam's Handy Volume Atlas of the World (New York, 1921), 
which contains the latest census figures of population, and indicates 
on the maps the changes made by the treaties of 1919 and 1920. 

For chronology I have depended upon W. H. Tillinghast (ed, 
and trans.), Ploetz' Manual of Universal History (Boston, 1915) ; 
G. P. and G. H. Putnam, Handbook of Universal History (New 
York, 1919) ; A. Hassall, European History Chronologically Ar- 
ranged (London, 1920) ; A. Hassall, British History Chronologi- 
cally Arranged (London, 1920), and Chronology of the War (Lon- 
don, 1918-20), 3 vols, and atlas. This last publication was issued 
under the auspices of the British Ministry of Information, and is 

577 



578 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

copiously indexed at the end of each year. It gives the war day by 
day from June 23, 1914, to December 31, 1918, and contains a brief 
chronology for 1919; there are valuable notes, tables, and appen- 
dices. 

For general reference I find indispensable The Annual Register 
(London, 1756-1921), and Sir J. S. Keltie, The Statesman's Y ear- 
Book (London), which is revised annually. I have a complete set 
of The Annual Register, and find in it the material that I have 
failed to get from other sources. It is fairly well indexed, and 
carries a sufficiently full record of parliamentary debates and news- 
paper comments for reference purposes. Similarly, The States- 
man's Year-Book contains statistics, revised annually, and the 
latest information concerning governmental changes, treaties, etc. 
Each year there are several interesting maps, giving recent changes. 
However, The Encyclopcedia Britannica (11th ed. and including 
three new volumes published in 1922), owing to its unrivaled index, 
should always be at hand. For detailed information concerning the 
international relations of European, African, and Asiatic countries 
and dependencies, and international canals, congresses, schemes for 
peace, etc., the 162 Handbooks Prepared under the Direction of the 
Historical Section of the Foreign Office (London, 1920) are excel- 
lent. They do not cover the entire world, however, and are of un- 
even merit. The China Year-Book, The Japan Year-Book, the 
French Annuaire Colonial, and The Neiv York World Almanac oc- 
casionally help one out when other sources fail. From 1914 to 1920 
inclusive, The Times Diary and Index of the War (London, 1921), 
referring to The Times History of the War, 22 vols. (London, 1915- 
1921), is the best aid to quick reference I know of, if one has on his 
shelves a complete Times set. The New York Times Current His- 
tory, which has been published monthly since August, 1914, con- 
tains a very good diary of events, and the texts of agreements and 
treaties, as well as of the most important speeches made by states- 
men during the war and the peace negotiations. 

For problems of international law, I use G. B. Davis, The Ele- 
ments of International Law (New York, 1915), the fourth ed., re- 
vised by G. E. Sherman ; E. C. Stowell and H. F. Munro, Interna^ 
tional Cases (Boston, 1916), 2 vols.; and L. Oppenheim, Interna- 
tional Law (London, 1920-21), 2 vols., third ed., edited by R. F. 
Roxburgh. 



BIBLIOGEAPHY 579 

INTEENATIONAIi RELATIONS BEFORE 1878 
(Chapters 1, 2, 3) 

Sir Edward Hertslet, The Map of Europe hy Treaty, revised ed., 
4 vols. (London, 1891), is the best reference work. The founda- 
tion of the world order of the nineteenth century is given exhaus- 
tively by Comte d'Angeberg in Le Congres de Yienne et les 
Traites de 1815 (Paris, 1864) and succinctly and critically by 
W. A. Phillips in The Confederation of Europe (London, 1914). 

D. P. Heatley, Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations 
(Oxford, 1919), and E. Lipson, Europe in the Nineteenth Century 
(London, 1916), have written illuminating studies from the view- 
point of world polities, while P. S. Reinsch's World Politics at the 
End of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1919) blazed the trail 
for American writers. Other suggestive books are: C. Dupuis, Le 
Principe d'Equilihre et le Concert Europeen (Paris, 1909) ; and 

E. H. Sears, An Outline of Political Growth in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury (New York, 1900). For general reference, the most satisfac- 
tory accounts of diplomatic events are found in A. Debidour, His- 
toire diplomatique de VEurope, 4 vols, (Paris, 1891-1917), and A. 
Stern, Geschichte Europas seit den Vertrdgen von 1815 his zum 
Frankfurter Freiden von 1871, of which six volumes were pub- 
lished up to the outbreak of the war, reaching only the Revolution 
of 1848. I have on my shelves, and acknowledge my indebtedness 
to, the general histories of the period written by Professors C. Seig- 
nobos, C. M. Andrews, J, H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, C. D. 
Hazen, L. H. Holt and A. W. Chilton, C. J. H, Hayes, J. S. Seha- 
piro, W. A. Phillips, J. H, Rose, and F, Schevill. 

THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION 
(Cliapters 3, 6, 7, 13, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 39, 40, 48) 

The two outstanding reference volumes are: E, Driault, La 
Question d'Ori&nt (Paris, 1914), and J, A. R, Marriott, The East- 
ern Question (Oxford, 1917). G, Yakchitch, L 'Europe et la 
Resurrection de la Serhie: 1804-1834 (Paris, 1917), gives an excel- 
lent account of how Europe was drawn into the Balkan difficulties ; 
and Sir T. H. Holdich, Boundaries in Europe and the Near East 
(London, 1918), has summed up the territorial developments and 



580 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

changes. The Near Eastern question is covered in detail by Debi- 
dour, and more summarily by Seignobos and the American text- 
book -writers cited above. On particular phases of the question, 
among a host of volumes are worth singling out De Freycinet, La 
Question d'Egypte (Paris, 1905) ; D. G. Hogarth, The Nearer East 
(London, 1901) ; T. G. Djuvara, Cent pro jets de Parta-ge de la 
Turquie (Paris, 1914) ; Lord Eversley, The Turkish Empire: Its 
Growth and Decay (London, 1917) ; H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia, 
Its Races and Their Future (London, 1906) ; and R. W. Seton-Wat- 
son. The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans (London, 1917). Re- 
cent and present problems are treated by H. A. Gibbons, The New 
Map of Europe (New York, 1914) ; A. Mandelstam, Le Sort de 
L'Empire Ottoman (Lausanne, 1917) ; M. Jastrow, The War and 
the Bagdad Railway (Philadelphia, 1916) ; N, Buxton and C. L. 
Leese, Balkan Problems and European Peace (London, 1919) ; L. 
Maccas, L'llellenisme de I'Asia-Mineure (Paris, 1919) ; P. Hibben, 
Constantine I. and the Greek People (New York, 1917) ; and H. A. 
Gibbons, Venizelos (in the Modern Statesmen Series, Boston, 1920). 
Three Balkan premiers have given personal testimony of recent 
events: I. E. Gueshoff, The Balkan League (London, 1915); E. 
Venizelos, The Yindication of Greek National Policy: 1912-1917 
(London, 1918), and T. Joneseu, Origins of the War (London, 
1917), and Some Personal Impressions (New York, 1920). 

THE FAH EASTERN QUESTION 

(Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 27, 28, 43, 44, 45, 47, 4j9) 

The relations between Europe and the Far East are treated by 
Debidour and the other authorities given above, and the role of the 
different powers, includmg Japan and the United States, is dis- 
cussed in the books listed under the foreign policy and colonial 
expansion of each of these powers. The outstanding work on the 
Far Eastern question is H. B. Morse, The International Relations 
of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols. (London, 1918). T. F. Millard, Our 
Eastern Question (New York, 1916), and N. J. Bau, The Foreign 
Rclatians of China (New York, 1921), give the Chinese point of 
view. I have found of value K. S. Latourette, The Development of 
China (New York, 1918) ; and G. Maspero, La Chine (Paris, 1919). 
The last decade is summed up in B. L. Putnam "Weale's The Fight 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 581 

for the Repuhlic in China (London, 1918). From the anti-imperi- 
alist point of view, the history of the last half-century is sum- 
marized and commented upon by H. M. Hyndman, The Awakening 
of Asia (London, 1919), and H. A. Gibbons, The New Map of Asia 
(New York, 1919). How China has tried to adapt herself to new 
conditions is explained in H. M. Vinacke's Modern Constitutional 
Development in China (Princeton, 1921). 

FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION 

(Chapters 4, 11, 16, 17, 43) 

Singularly few books dealing specifically with French colonial 
expansion are accessible to the American reader. Reference must 
be made to chapters on the colonies in the various histories of 
France, especially A. Malet, Histoire de France (Paris, 1916), and 
to the forthcoming volumes in the new French history now being 
published under the editorship of G. Hanotaux. There is a sum- 
mary of the extension of the colonial empire under the Third Re- 
public in W. S. Davis, History of France (Boston, 1919). 0. 
Reclus, Atlas de la Plus Grande France (Paris, 1915), is useful, and 
the standard work is M. Dubois and A Terrier, Un siecle d' expan- 
sion Goloniale (Paris, reissued at various dates). Care should be 
taken to secure the latest edition. I have not space to list the books 
that I have used for particular colonies. My own The New Map of 
Africa (New York, 1916) gives the development of the African 
colonies without much detail. 

BRITISH COLONIAL EXPANSION 
(Chapters 1, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 15, 44, 47) 

The indis£ensable,,woxk is C. P. huc£i&, A Historical Geographi/ 
of the British Colonies, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1922), with which ought to 
be read H. E. Egerton's brief and excellent introduction. The 
Origin and Growth of Greater Britain (Oxford, 1920), and his 
Short History of British Colonial Policy (5th ed., Oxford, 1919). 
I have used also W. H. Woodward, A Short History of the 
Expansion of the British Empire: 1500-1911 (London, 1912) ; A. J. 
Herbertson and 0. J. R. Howarth, The Oxford Survey of the Brit- 
ish Empire, 12 vols. (Oxford, 1914) ; and J. P. Bulkeley, The Brit- 



582 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ish Empire: A Short History (Oxford, 1921). The most penetrat- 
ing studies of colonial problems and imperial relations are : JBu^Jebb, 
Studies in Colonial Nationalism (London, 1905) ; and L. Curtis, 
^e Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916). Since 1911, The 
Round Table, published in London four times a year, has given the 
best critical commentary on events and tendencies within the Brit- 
ish Empire. On particular phases, important works are : Lord 
Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols. (London, 1908) ; Lord Milner, Eng- 
land and Egypt (London, 1904) ; Sir T. W. Holderness, Peoples and 
Problems of India (London, 1912) ; Lajpat Rai, England's Debt to 
India (New York, 1917) ; H. T. Turner, The First Decade of the 
Australian Commonwealth (London, 1911) ; R. H. Brand, The 
Union of South Africa (London, 1909) ; A. B. Keith, Responsible 
Government in the Dominions, 3 vols. (London, 1912) ; B. Williams, 
Cecil Rhodes (London, 1921) ; General Smuts, Speeches (London, 
1918) ; and P. S. Reinsch, Colonial Government (New York, 1902). 
S. Kennedy, The Pan-Angles (London, 1914), and A. G. Gardiner, 
The Anglo-Amencan Future (New York, 1921), deal with the ques- 
tion discussed in Chapter XL VII. 

RUSSIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION 

(Chapters 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 32, 41) 

F. H. Skrine, The Expansion of Russia: 1815-1900 (Cambridge, 
1904), and A. Krausse, Russia in Asia: 1558-1899 (London, 1900), 
give the best and fullest accounts. The two monumental histories 
of Russia, however, should be consulted : A, N. Rambaud, Histoire 
de la Russie (rev. ed., Paris, 1900), and A. Kleinschmidt, Drei 
Jahrhunderte russischer Geschichte: 1598-1898 (Berlin, 1898), and 
the recent admirable short history: R. Beazley, N. Forbes, and 
G. A. Birkett, Russia (Oxford, 1918). Light on colonial policies is 
contained in The Memoirs of Count Witte (New York, 1921), trans, 
and ed. by A. Yarmolinsky; and in A, Iswolski's Recollections of a 
Foreign Minister (New York, 1921), trans, by C. L. Seeger. The 
Persian policy of Russia and the working out of the Anglo-Persian 
Agreement is given in W. M. Shuster's The Strangling of Persia 
(New York, 1912). The books cited under the Near East, the Far 
East, and Japanese expansion deal also with Russian colonial ex- 
pansion and foreign policy. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 583 

GEEMAir COLONIAL EXPANSION 
(Claptors 7, 16, 17, 28) 

The most comprehensive work is A. Zimmermann, GeschicMe der 
deutscJien Kolonialpolitik (Berlin, 1914), but along with it should 
be read E. Tonnelat, L'Expansion allemande hors d'Europe (Paris, 
1908), E, Lewin, The Germans arid Africa (London, 1915), and 
A, F. CaVveTt, The German African Empire (London, 1916). As all 
the German colonies have changed hands, it is unnecessary to refer 
to specific works concerning their past status. But, as the question 
of German expansion was one that intimately affected the internal 
political growth and was as intimately the result of the internal 
economic growth of Germany since 1870, reference is advisable to : 
Prince von Biilow, Impenal Germany (rev. ed., London, 1916), 
trans, by M. A. Lewenz; P. Rohrbach, German World Policies 
(New York, 1915), trans, by E. von Mach; Count von Reventlow, 
Deutschlands auswdrtige Politik (Berlin, 1915) ; C. Gauss, The 
German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances (New York, 
1915) ; K. Naumann, Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1916) ; G. "W. Prothero, 
German Opinion and German Policy Before the War (London, 
1916). I have found illuminating: J. H. Clapham, The Economic 
Development of France and Germany: 1815-1914 (Cambridge, 
1901) ; R. H. Fife, Jr., The German Empire Between Tioo Wars 
(New York, 1916) ; C. H. Herford, Germany in the Nineteenth 
Century (Manchester, 1915) ; K. Helfferich, Germany's Economic 
Progress and National Wealth: 1888-1913 (Berlin, 1915), and F. A. 
Ogg, Economic Development of Modern Europe (New York, 1917). 

ITALIAN COLONIAL EXPANSION 

(Chapters 19, 20, 25, 26, 36, 40) 

The only satisfactory work I have found dealing with this sub- 
ject is G. Assereto's L'ltalia e le sue Colonic (Novara, 1913). 
There are special commercial and travel books on the Red Sea and 
Somaliland colonies, and an abundant literature has grown up on 
Tripoli. But one finds, even in Italian, singularly little about the 
military situation in the colonies, the past dealings of Italy with 
Abyssinia, and the attitude of Italy towards Tunisia, except what 
has been written for propaganda purposes. 



584 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

JAPANESE COLONIAL EXPANSION 

(Cliapters 10, 11, 12, 28, 45, 47, 48, 49) 

The facts of Japanese expansion are given fully in books dealing 
■with the Far East and China, on European international relations, 
and on the conflicts between Russia and Japan. Count S. Okuma 
compiled a work called Fifty Years of New Japan, the English edi- 
tion of which, in 2 vols., was edited by M. B. Huish (London, 
1909). Since the incorporation of Korea in the empire there has 
been no special book, impartially written, on the Japanese colonies 
by a foreigner. The attitude of the Japanese people towards 
colonial expansion is given in K. Asakawa, The Russo-Japanese 
Conflict: Its Causes and Issues (New York, 1904) ; I. Nitobe, The 
Japanese Nation (New York, 1912) ; and K. Kawakami, Japan in 
World Politics (New York, 1917). W. W. McLaren, A Political 
History of Japan (New York, 1916) and G. E. Uyehara, The Politi- 
cal Development of Japan: 1867-1909 (London, 1910), give the 
background of Japanese expansion. The attitude of the United 
States is well described in P. J. Treat, Japan and the United States: 
1853-1921 (Boston, 1921). The best recent survey by a foreigner 
is A. S. Hershey, Modern Japan (New York, 1919), along with 
which should be read A. Gerard, Ma Mission au Japan: 1907-1914 
(Paris, 1919), and E. Hovelaque, Japan (Paris, 1920). An invalu- 
able study of Japan's position in world affairs is S. K. Hornbeck, 
Contemporary Politics in the Far East (New York, 1916). 

AMERICAN FOEEIGN POLICY 

(Chapters 29, 30, 31, 34, 46, 47, 49) 

For reference, W. F. Johnson, America's Foreign Relations, 2 
vols. (New York, 1916), is excellent, and beside it should be placed 
J. M. Mathews, The Conduct of American Foreign Relations (New 
York, 1922), and J. B. Moore, Principles of American Diplomacy 
(New York, 1918). A. C. Coolidge, The United States as a World 
Power, and J. H. Latane, The United States as a World Power 
(New York, 1907), were the pioneers in a new field that has not 
up to the present time been either exhaustively or comprehensively 
treated. On particular phases of American foreign policy we 
have: A. B. Hart, The Monroe Doctrine: An Interpretation (Bos- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 585 

ton, 1916) ; A. T. Mahan, Interest of the United States in the Sea 
Power (New York, 1902) ; L. C. and P. F. Ford, The Foreign Trade 
of the United States (New York, 1920) ; E. N. Hurley, The New 
Merchant Marine (New York, 1920) ; J. B, Lockey, Pan-Ameri- 
canism: Its Beginnings (New York, 1920) ; and M. M. Kalaw, Self- 
Government in the Philippine Islands (New York, 1919) and The 
Case for the Filipinos (New York, 1916). Relations with Latin 
America have been brought into one volume by J. H. Latane, The 
United States and Latin America (New York, 1920), and with 
Japan by P. J. Treat, Japan and the United States (Boston, 1921). 
E. S. Cor win has written illuminatingly on The President's Con- 
trol of Foreign Relations (Princeton, 1917), and the changes in 
America 's international relations in the decade preceding the World 
War are given in F. A. Ogg, National Progress: 1907-1917, which ia 
vol. XXVII of The American Nation (New York, 1918). Two sug- 
gestive books, critical and interpretative, are : W. E. Weyl, Ameri- 
can World Policies (New York, 1917) and C. E. Merriam, American 
Political Ideas (New York, 1920). L. S. Rowe, The United States 
and Porto Rico (New York, 1904), raised questions which American 
public opinion has not yet passed upon. Still worth reading, in 
gathering up the threads of the past, are : J. W. Foster, A Century 
of American Diplomacy (Boston, 1900) and American Diplomacy 
in the Orient (Boston, 1903) ; and Ugo Rabbeno, The American 
Commercial Policy (London, 1895). 

ORIGINS AND DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

(Chapters 24, 25, 26, 31, 32) 

Books that could be listed under this heading are legion, and 
more are appearing each month. I cite only books which I have 
found of service in making clear the influence of world politics upon 
the World War. 

On the origins of the war, three Americans have written pene- 
tratingly and accurately : C. Seymour, The Diplomatic Background 
of the War (New Haven, 1916) ; A. BuUard, The Diplomacy of the 
Great War (New York, 1916) ; and W. M. FuUerton, Problems of 
Power (New York, 1914 — revised ed., 1920). An excellent book 
to be read with these three is J, Bakeless, The Economic Causes of 
Modern Wars (New York, 1921). The British, French, German, 



586 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

and Austrian theses concerning the direct responsibility of the 
■war are obtained in J. W. Headlam, The History of Twelve Bays 
(London, 1915) ; J. Reinach, Les Bouze Jours (Paris, 1917) ; E. von 
Mach, Official Biplomatic Bocuments Relating to the Outhreak of 
the European War (New York, 1916) ; and R. Goos, Bas Wiener 
Kahinet und die Entstehung des Weltkrieges (Vienna, 1919). E. D. 
Morel, Ten Years of Secret Biplomacy (London, 1915) ; F. Neil- 
son, How Biplonuits Make War (New York, 1915) ; and Y. Guyot, 
The Causes and the Consequences of the War (New York, 1916), 
trans, by F. A. Holt, judge the work of European statesmen from 
the viewpoint of the layman. F. Delaisi, La Guerre qui Vient 
(Paris, 1911), is a startling prophecy of what was to be the result 
of the Morocco imbroglio. It was translated into English and 
published (Boston, 1915) under the title The Inevitable War. Pro- 
fessor G, Murray wrote a brief critical study. The Foreign Policy 
of Sir Edward Grey: 1906-1915 (Oxford, 1915). Viscount Haldane, 
Before the War (New York, 1920), and T. Jonescu, Origins of the 
War (London, 1917), have reviewed ante-bellum negotiations in 
which these statesmen took part. 

The diplomatic history of the World War has not yet been writ- 
ten. I have had to rely upon the publication of documents and 
speeches and correspondence in newspapers and periodicals, and 
upon books and pamphlets that were circulated chiefly for propa- 
ganda purposes. Many of the secret treaties concluded during the 
war were published by the Petrograd Izvestia between December, 
1917, and March, 1918, from the archives of the Russian Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs. These were translated and published in Eng- 
land by the Manchester Guardian. In a long series of articles 
appearing weekly in the New York Times, and which will be pub- 
lished in book form in the autumn of 1922, R. S. Baker has been 
giving to the world the secret minutes of the Peace Conference, in 
which the existence of additional secret treaties is divulged. That 
there were such agreements was known long ago, and their general 
tenor also was suspected. For what I have written about the entry 
of Italy into the World War, the Balkan affairs, the relations 
among the powers from 1914 to 1918, and the disruption of the 
Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish empires, I have had to 
rely primarily upon information derived from personal contact 
with events and statesmen. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 587 

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. THE EFFORT TO FORM A LEAGUE OF 

NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY SINCE 

THE PARIS CONFERENCE 

(Chapters 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 48, 49) 

The conference, its machinery, its problems, its treaties, and 
how they have been applied, are discussed in more or less detail in 
A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, 5 vols. (London, 1920- 
1921), ed. by H. W. V. Temperley, and issued under the auspices of 
The Institute of International Affairs. This voluminous undertak- 
ing is informative rather than critical. Men who participated in 
the negotiations have written as follows: President Wilson, Ad- 
dresses Delivered on the Western Tour (Senate Doc. No. 120, Wash- 
ington, 1919) ; A. Tardieu, The Truth About the Treaty (Indian- 
apolis, 1921) ; E. M. House and C. Seymour (editors). What Really 
Happened at Paris (New York, 1921) ; R. Lansing, The Peace Ne- 
gotiations and The Big Four and Others of the Peace Conference 
(Boston, 1921) ; J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the 
Peace (New York, 1920) and A Revision of the Treaty (New York, 
1922) ; B. Baruch, The Economic Sections of the Peace Treaty 
(New York, 1920) ; and C. H. Haskins and R. H. Lord, Some Prob- 
lems of the Peace Conference (Boston, 1920), In addition to these 
narratives, which can not help being — even if only mildly — ex parte, 
we have the observations of three shrewd correspondents.: H. Han- 
son, The Adventures of the Fourteen Points (New York, 1919) ; 
C. T. Thompson, The Peace Conference Day hy DoAf (New York, 

1920) ; and E. J. Dillon, The Inside Story of the Peace Conference 
(New York, 1920). A brief commentary on the treaties is A. P. 
Scott, An Introduction to the Peace Treaties (Chicago, 1920). 

Among the notable books written on the post-treaty situation 
are: F. A. Vanderlip, What Happened to Europe (New York, 
1919) and What Next in Europe (New York, 1922) ; A. Deman- 
geon, Le Declin de I'Europe (Paris, 1920) ; F. C. Hicks, The New 
World Order (New York, 1920) ; N. Angel, The Fruits of Victory 
(New York, 1921) ; W. Rathenau, The New Society (New York, 
1921) ; and ex-Premier Nitti, Europe Without Peace (London, 
1922). E. Antonelli's L'Afrique et la paix de Versailles (Paris, 

1921) is the most informative work on the African phases of the 
peace conference decisions. 

The most penetrating European comment on the League of Na- 



588 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

tions is to be found in J. L. Garvin, The Economic Foundations of 
Peace (London, 1919) ; G. Ferrero, Problems of Peace (New York, 
1919) ; and M. Erzberger, The League of Nations the Way to the 
World's Peace (New York, 1919), trans, by B. Miall. A succinct 
account of the beginning of the experiment is given in G. G. Wil- 
son, The First Year of th-e League of Nations (Boston, 1921) ; 
H. W. V. Temperley, The Second Year of the League of Nations 
(London, 1922). The entire subject of international organization 
is covered in P. B. Potter, Introduction to the Study of Interna- 
tional Organization (New York, 1922). 

The best collection of documents and speeches in connection with 
the diplomatic history of the war, the peace negotiations, the con- 
tinuation conferences, and the post-bellum problems and experi- 
ments in international relations is contained in the Documents 
of the American Association for International Conciliation, Nos. 83- 
185 (New York, 1914-1922). This collection is rich in treaties, 
diplomatic correspondence, and speeches of the principal actors in 
the World War and the peace negotiations. It contains all the im- 
portant treaties and agreements, not only of the Paris and the con- 
tinuation conferences, but also the text of the agreements among the 
Entente powers and between the Entente powers and non-Euro- 
pean states. With equal accuracy and completeness, but in less 
convenient form for reference, this same ground is covered by Cur- 
rent History, published monthly by the New York Times. Littell's 
Living Age, published weekly in Boston, reprints many important 
articles on world conditions by European writers, almost all of 
which are well worth reading. The World's Work (New York) has 
given excellent maps of territorial changes resulting from the 
World War. In conclusion, this bibliography would not be com- 
plete without calling attention to the unique service that has been 
rendered to the American public by the Literary Digest (New 
York), whose editors have published since 1919 informative special 
articles, giving concisely and impartially an account of political 
and economic conditions in small countries and contested provinces, 
with maps, and have devoted special numbers, with maps, to tlie 
larger states in turn. Reference to the Literary Digest index from 
1919 to 1922 will lead the student to statistical data and maps 
illustrating virtually all the problems of international relations 
during the era of world reconstruction. 



INDEX 



Abdul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey, 99 
et seq. 

Abyssinia, British war with, 1868, 75 ; 
Italian influence in, 230-3 

Aden, occupation of, by British, 75 

Afghanistan, rivalry between Great 
Britain and Eussia for control of, 
87-8 

Africa, extension of French colonial 
empire in northern, 25-6; British 
expansion in, 171 et seq.; German 
annexations in, 198; Italian ex- 
pansion in, 228 et seq. 

Africa, central, British enterprise in, 
78-9 

Agadir incident, 214-15 

Alaska, purchased by United States, 
69 

Albania, status of, after 1913, 266 
et seq. 

Albanian uprising in 1903, 247 

Algeciras, conference of, 210-11 

Algeria, French conquest of, 54-5 

Anam, French protectorate over, 60 

Anglo-Japanese alliance, 155 

Angora, treaty of, 1921, 436 

Armenian atrocities, 112 

Armenians, deserted after European 
War, 454 

Ascension, British conquest of, 65 

Ashanti War of 1873-4, 79 

Asia Minor, railway concessions to 
Germans in, 204 

Assab, port occupied by Italy, 229 

Australia, first British settlement in, 
65; development of colonization of, 
71; discovery of gold, in, 71 

Austria-Hungary, formation of dual 
monarchy, 34; steps in creation of, 
36-7; war with France in 1859, 46; 
war with Prussia in 1866, 46; Aus- 
tria expelled from German confed- 
eration, 46; and Near Eastern 
question, 97-8, 104-6; annexes Bos- 
nia and Herzegovina, 221; ultima- 
tum to Serbia, 1914, 275; declares 
war against Serbia, 276; disintegra- 
tion of empire, 367 e" seq.; treaty 



of St. Germain, 382 ; separatist 
movements in, 410; dismemberment 
of, 412 
Austro-Prussian War of 1866, 46 

Balance of power, as conceived by 
framers of the Act of Vienna, 20 j 
445 

Balkans, entrance of Germany into 
polities of, 98; wars in, in 1912 
and 1913, 99; progress towards 
statehood in, 101 et seq.; hatred of 
Turks in, 108; Germany aims at 
control of, 203 ; intrigues of the 
great powers in (1903-1912), 246 
et seq.; note of the powers to, 1912, 
252; war against Turkey (1912- 
1913), 254 et seq.; the Balkan 
tangle (1913-1914), 261 et seq.; war 
between Bulgaria and Greece and 
Serbia, 263-4; Eumania declares 
war on Bulgaria, 264; armistice 
signed, 265; status of Albania, 266 
et seq.; alinement of in European 
War (1914-1917), 294 et seq. 

Baluchistan, British protectorate over, 
76 

Barbary pirates, 25 

Belgium, neutrality violated, 278; and 
Congo Free State, 475-8 

Berlin, Congress of, 1878, 49-50 

Berlin Memorandum, 1876, 46 

Black Sea, neutralized, 43; neutrality 
abrogated, 46 

Boer war, 176-7 

Bolshevist regime in Eussia, 463 et 
seq.; fear of spread of, 469 

Bombay, ceded by Portugal to Great 
Britain, 73 

Bosnia, annexed by Austria, 221 

Bosphorus, closed to foreign ships of 
war, 44 

Boxer rebellion in China, 146 et 
seq. 

Brest-Litovsk, treaty of, 408 

Brussels Conference, 1920, 555; 1921, 
557 

Buhkarest, treaty of, 408 



589 



590 



INDEX 



Bulgaria, status of, as fixed by Con- 
gress of Berlin, 1878, 49; indepen- 
dence proclaimed, 104, 221; joins 
Central Powers in European War, 
297; and treaty of Neuilly, 422 et 
seq. 

Burma, annexed by Great Britain, 76 

Cambodia, French protectorate over, 
60 

Canada, War of 1812 proves attach- 
ment of, to Great Britain, 68; 
Dominion of, formed, 69 

Cannes, conference of, 1922, 451, 559 

Canning, George, British Foreign Min- 
ister, opposes restoration of colonies 
to Spain, 25 

Cape of Good Hope, British conquest 
of, 65 

"Capitulations," definition of, 100 n. 

Caucasian territories, ceded to Eussia, 
114 

Central Asia, Russian expansion in, 
117-18 

Central Empires, Triple Entente 
against (1914), 272 et seq.; United 
States in coalition against, 358 et 
seq. 

Ceylon, British conquest of, 65 

"Civilization," history of, developed 
in Mediterranean lands, 3 

China, compelled to cede territory and 
commercial privileges, 38-9; treaty 
rights granted foreign povrers in, 
118; treaties with Eussia, 119-20; 
war with Japan, 136; attempt to 
partition (1895-1902), 139 et seq.; 
Boxer rebellion, 146 et seq.; result- 
ing demands and settlements, 150- 
7; German acquisitions in, 201-2; 
as a republic (1906-1917), 305 et 
seq.; emperor abdicates, 310; atti- 
tude of great powers towards re- 
public, 311 et seq.; civil dissensions 
in, 314 et seq. 

Church, allegiance to divisions of, a 
disruptive influence, 6 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 346 

Coal and iron become greatest sources 
of wealth and military power, 22 

Cochin-China, provinces ceded to 
France, 60 

Congo Free State, 475-8 

Congo, upper, French penetrate, 58 

Continuation Conferences: from Lon- 
don to Genoa (1919-1922), 548 et 
seq. 

Crimea, ceded to Eussia, 114 



Crimean War, 42-3; influence of, on 

rise of world powers, 45 
Cypress Convention, 86 
Czech republic proclaimed, 375 

Dahomey, conquered by France, 58 
Declaration of the Eights of Man, 

1789, beginning of new epoch in 

European history, 19 
De Lesseps, Ferdinand, builds Suez 

Canal, 85 
Dutch East Indies, 480-2 

Eastern question, as affected by the 
Congress of Berlin, 49-50 

Egypt, becomes bankrupt, 90; mili- 
tary occupation of, 91 ; held by 
Great Britain, 92 ; expansion of, 93 ; 
Arabi Pasha's revolt, 93; the 
Mahdi, 93-4; Khartum captured by 
the Mahdi and Gordon and garrison 
killed, 94; and Anglo-French agree- 
ment of 1904, 185 et seq. 

Elizabeth, Queen, patent to Sir Walter 
Ealeigh, 68 

English-speaking nations, bases of 
solidarity among, 535 et seq. 

Entente Cordial, grows out of colonial 
expansion of France, 64; see also 
Triple Entente 

European war, 1814-1818, 276 et seq.; 
attempts to prevent, 276-7; powers 
engaged in, 278; first battle of the 
Marne, 282; Italy's entrance into 
the Entente (1915), 283 et seq.; 
alinement of Balkan states in 
(1914-1917), 294 et seq.; entrance 
of United States, 358 et seq.; Eus- 
sian revolution, 367; disintegration 
of Eomanoff, Hapsburg, and Otto- 
man empires (1917-1918), 367 et 
seq.; establishment of peace pre- 
vented by unsatisfied nationalist 
aspirations and divergent policies, 
442 et seq. 

Far East, British moves in, 1895-1902, 
168 

Finland, annexed by Eussia, 114 

Fiume, 548, 549 

Foreign policies, arguments for strong, 
23-4 

France, loss of colonies, 13-14; sea 
poAver broken, 14; leads in evolu- 
tion of national self -consciousness, 
10; extension of colonial empire in 
northern Africa, 25-6; fall of Or- 
leans dynasty, 32; in Crimean War, 



INDEX 



591 



42-3 ; war with Austria in 1859, 46 ; 
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71, 46; 
colonial expansion, 1830-1900, 52 et 
seq.; part taken in attempt to par- 
tition China, 141 et seq.; Anglo- 
French agreement of 1904 on Egypt 
and Morocco, 185 et seq.; Franco- 
German dispute over Morocco (1905- 
1911), 207 et seq.; protectorate 
over Morocco established, 218; in- 
vaded by Germany, 1914, 278; pol- 
icy of, after European War, 448 et 
seq.; colonial problems (1901-1922), 
483 et seq.; in Syria, 484-5; in the 
Far East, 485; north African em- 
pire, 487-8; use of colonials for 
military service, 488-90; wealth of 
colonies, 490-1 
Franchise, expansion of, causes defer- 
ence to pulbie opinion, 23 
Franco-Austrian War of 1859, 46 
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71, 46 
Franz Ferdinand, of Austria, Arch- 
duke, and his wife assassinated, 
1914, 274 
French Eevolution, principles of, writ- 
ten into the heart of Europe, 19 

Gabun, France mistress of, 58 
Galicia incorporated into Poland, 375 
Georgia, annexed by Eussia, 114 
German East Africa, 478 
Germany, aftermath of Eevolution of 
1848 in, 33 et seq.; steps in crea- 
tion of German empire, 35; treaty 
of Paris a factor in hastening uni- 
fication of, 45-6; entrance of, into 
Balkan politics, 98 ; part in attempt 
to partition China, 142 et seq.; in 
Boxer rebellion, 152-3 ; gains Span- 
ish islands in Pacific, 169 ; shut out 
from Persia by Anglo-Eussian 
agreement of 1907, 184; attempts 
to block French in Morocco, 191 ; 
development of WeltpoUtik, 195 et 
seq. ; growth in industry and pros- 
perity after war of 1870, 196-7; 
colonial acquisitions, 198 et seq.; 
province of Shantung comes under 
control of, 201 ; aim of control of 
Austro-Hungary and the Balkans, 
203 ; Great Britain recognizes men- 
ace of German approach to Persian 
Gulf, 204; increase of economic in- 
terests in the Ottoman empire, 205; 
Franco-German dispute over Mo- 
rocco (1905-1911), 207 etseq.; stands 
Jjehind Austro-Hungary in annexa- 



tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
272; invades France, 1914, 278; 
observations on treaty of Versailles, 
406; indemnity after European 
War, 552 et seq. 
Gold, discovery of, in Australia, 71 
Gordon, General, killed in Khartum, 

94 
Greece, advantages gained from re- 
vision of San Stefano treaty, 105 
et seq.; in European War, 1914- 
1918, 298-301 
Greek War of Liberation, 26 
Great Britain, acquires colonies of 
France, 13-14; battle of Trafalgar 
gives her a free hand in America, 
14; compels China to cede territory 
and commercial privileges, 38; in 
Crimean War, 42-3 ; intervenes 
against Eussia in settlement of 
Eastern question, 1878, 48 et seq.; 
prepares way for occupation of 
Egypt, 50; Cyprus convention, 50; 
backs Morocco against France and 
Spain, 56 ; colonial agreements with 
France, 58 et seq.; colonial expan- 
sion of, 1815-1878, 65 et seq.; nega- 
tive role in international diplomacy 
from Congress of Vienna to Con- 
gress of Berlin, 66; development of, 
during Napoleonic wars, 66-7 ; abol- 
ishes slavery in colonies, 81 ; Con- 
solidation of power in the near East 
(1878-1885), 83 et seq.; secures 
control of Suez Canal, 85; part in 
attempt to partition China, 141 et 
seq.; Anglo- Japanese alliance, 155; 
revival of British imperialism (1895- 
1902), 166 et seq.; new territorial 
acquisitions, 166-7; further expan- 
sion in Africa, 171 et seq.; Boer 
War, 176-7; Persia and the agree- 
ment with Eussia in 1907, 178 et 
seq.; Anglo-French agreement of 
1904 on Morocco and Egypt, 185 
et seq.; recognizes menace of Ger- 
man approach to Persian Gulf, 204; 
declares war on Germany, 1914, 
278; arbitrates dispute with Vene- 
zuela, 1895, 342; policy of, after 
European War, 450; imperial prob- 
lems (1903-1922), 494 et seq.; em- 
pire bound by tie of interest, 495 ; 
dominions throw in their lot with 
mother country at outbreak of 
European War, 497; danger to 
solidarity of empire, 499; Indian 
problems, 501 et seq.; nationalist 



592 



INDEX 



agitation in Egypt, 505-7; in 
Mesopotamia, 507-8; power and 
commercial influence in Par East, 
510-11; and United States ought 
to face the future together, 538; 
settlement of Irish question, 
546 
Guiana, British conquest of part of, 
65, 79 

Hanseatie League, 10-11 

HapsbuTg dominions, formation of 

dual monarchy, in, 34 
Herzegovina, annexed by Austria, 221 
' ' History of the Peace Conference of 

Paris, A," 382 n. 
Holy Alliance, 21; proposes interven- 
tion in favor of Spain against her 

revolting colonies, 24 
Holy Eoman Empire, 10 
Honduras, British, 80 
Hong-Kong, conquest of, by Great 

Britain, 76 
Hungary, treaty of Trianon with, 416 

et seq.; dealings with successor 

states of, 418 

Ibrahim Pasha, 27, 28 

India, Sepoy mutiny in, 45; conquest 
of, by British, 1801-1817, 65, 73-4; 
501-5 

Indo-China, French administrative 
control of, 61 

Ionian islands, 27 

Irish question, settlement of, 546 

Iron and coal become source of wealth 
and military power, 22 

Irredentism, 284 

Italians as traders and explorers, 9 

Italy, unification of, 34; steps in 
creation of, 35-6; Treaty of Paris 
a factor in hastening unification of, 
45-6 ; colonial agreement with 
France, 57 ; and Near Eastern ques- 
tion, 98; expansion in Africa (1882- 
1911), 228 et seq.; reopens Near 
Eastern question, 236 et seq.; 
Young Turks oppose ambitions in 
Tripoli, 238; ultimatum to Turkey, 
1911, 239-40; war with Turkey, 
240-4; takes Tripoli, 240; annexes 
Tripoli and Benghazi, 241 ; peace 
with Turkey, 244 ; entrance into the 
Entente (1915), 283 et seq.; de- 
clares war on Austria, 289 ; secret 
treaty with Entente, 290-1 ; policy 
of, after European War, 450-1 



Jameson's raid, 176 

Japan, opened to foreign intercourse, 
37, 131; development as world 
power, 38; commercial treaties, 40; 
opposes Kussia in north Pacific, 
115; treaties with Russia, 120-1; 
not allowed foothold in Asia after 
Chino -Japanese war, 125, 136; war 
with China, 130 et seq.; Occiden- 
talization of, 132-4; program of re- 
forms, 138; and partition of China, 
140 et seq.; Anglo- Japanese alli- 
ance, 155 ; war with Russia, 158 et 
seq.; captures Port Arthur, 162; 
treaty of peace with Russia, 163; 
in European War (1914-1918), 318 
et seq.; captures Shantung, 320-1; 
twenty -one demands on China, 323; 
understanding with Russia, 1916, 
326; post bellum foreign policy of 
(1919-1922), 514 et seq.; wealth 
and population, 514-15; aims of 
foreign policy, 518, anti-militarist 
movement in, 520 

Jugo-Slavs, 375-6 

Kernan, Major -General, TJ. S. A., 426 

n. 
Khartum, siege and capture of, by 

Mahdi, 94 
Korea, 127, 134-6, 138-142 
Eultur, 537 

Latin-American republics and the 
United States (1893-1917), 340 et 
seq. 
League of nations, attempt to create 
at Paris, 381 et seq.; real power 
vested in Council of, 383; Entente 
statesman favor, 386; provisions of, 
386-7; President Wilson on, 387-8; 
organization of, 388 ; meeting of 
Council at San Sebastian, 1921, 557 
Limitation of Armaments Conference 
at Washington, 1921, 398, 561 et 
seq, 
London, Conference of, in 1830, 41 
London Conference, 1921, 556 
London, Convention of, 1814, 77 

Madagascar, French protectorate over, 

58-9 
Madras, becomes British in 1748, 73 
Mahdi, the, revolt of, in Egypt, 93-4 
Malta, British conquest of, 65 
Maritime iuteruational law, changes 

in, made in 1856, 44-5 
Marne, first battle of, 282 



INDEX 



593 



Mauritius, British conquest of, 65 

Mehemet Ali, 27, 28 

Mexico, oil production of, 349 

Monroe Doctrine, promulgation of, 
keeps the United States out of 
world politics for more than seventy- 
five years, 25; international status 
of, 354-6 

Montenegro, independence recognized, 
1878, 49; declares war on Austria- 
Hungary, 1914, 294; concludes 
armistice, 298 

Morocco, 56-7; and Anglo-French 
agreement of 1904, 185 et seq.; 
Franco-German dispute over (1905- 
1911), 207 et seq.; French protec- 
torate established, 218 

Mukden, battle of, 162 

Miirzsteg program, 110, 248 

Natal, proclaimed British territory, 69 
National self-consciousness first dis- 
cerned, 17; evolution of, 19 
Nationalism and steam power, 17 et 
seq. ; effects in 19th century, 21 ; 
spirit of, at work in international 
relations, 24 
Navarino, naval battle of, 27 
Near Eastern Question (1879-1908), 
96 et seq.; reopened by Italy, 236 
et seq. 
Nepal, brought under British influ- 
ence, 65 
Neuilly, treaty of, and world politics, 

422 et seq. 
New Zealand, settled by British, 71 
Northern Pacific, Eussians gain foot- 
hold on, 114 

Obrenovitch, Milosh, 26 

Oceania, French colonial acquisitions 
in, 62-3 ; extension of British em- 
pire in, 78 

"Open door," in China, 144 

Orange Free State, 70 

Oregon Treaty, 1846, 68 

Orleans dynasty, fall of, in France, 32 

Ottoman Empire, attempts of Euro- 
pean powers to sacrifice subject 
races of, to their interests, 26 et 
seq.; disintegration of, 367 et 
seq. 

Pacific, German acquisitions in, 198 
Panama Canal, 346 et seq. 
Paris, Congress of, in 1856, 43-4 
Paris, Declaration of, 1856, on mari- 
time international law, 44 



Paris, Treaty of, 1856, 43-4; factor 
in hastening unification of Germany 
and Italy, 45-6 

Paris, Peace Conference at, 1919, 30; 
381 et seq.; treaties adopted, 388 

Paris Conference, 1921, 555 

Peace after European war, failure to 
establish, 442, et seq. 

Peace of Vienna, 1815, objects of, 20 

Persia, and the Anglo-Eussian agree- 
ment of 1907, 178 et seq. 

Persian Gulf, control of, 75-6 

Poland, Galicia incorporated into, 375 

Port Arthur, fortification of, by Eus- 
sia, 158 ; captured by Japanese, 162 

Portsmouth, Treaty of, 163 

Portugal, cedes Bombay to Great 
Britain, 73 

Portuguese colonial possessions, 474-5 

Prussia, in Congress of Paris, 1856, 
43, 45; war with Austria in 1866, 
46; Franco -Prussian War 1870-1, 
46 

Public opinion, expansion of franchise 
produces deference to, 23 

Eacial or national supremacy, 17 

Eadetsky, on attitude of Eussia to- 
wards Ottoman Empire, 96 

Eailways, become an important factor 
in economic life, 22 

Eapallo, treaty of, 1920, 453 

Eed Sea, British secure control of, 75 

Eevolution, French, see French Eevo- 
lutibn 

Eevolutions of 1848, 32-3 

Eoman republic put to an end by 
French, 32 

Eoosevelt, President, 163 

Eumania, principality of, constituted, 
47; independence recognized, 1878, 
49; in European War, 301 et seq.; 
declares war on Austria-Hungary, 
1916, 303 ; conquered by Central 
Powers, 304 

Eussia, encroachments on China, 40; 
wars against Turkey, 41 ; Crimean 
War, 42-3 ; goes to assistance of 
Balkans against Turkey, 48 ; dic- 
tates peace to Turkey, 1878, 48; 
forced to leave solution of Eastern 
question to the other powers at Con- 
gress of Berlin, 1878, 49-50 ; rivalry 
with Great Britain for control of 
Afghanistan, 87-8; efforts to gain 
control in the Near East, 96 et seq. ; 
effort to control Bulg'aria, 104; colo- 
nial expansion (1829-1878), 113 et 



594 



INDEX 



seq.', consolidation of power in Far 
East (1879-1903), 122 et seq.; 
would not Japan foothold on Asia 
after Chino- Japanese war, 125, 136; 
war with Japan, 129, 158 et seq.; 
part in attempt to partition China, 
140 et seq.; secures concessions in 
northern China, 154; agreement 
with China, 1902, 156; treaty of 
peace with Japan, 1905, 163 ; Anglo- 
Eussian agreement of 1907 and 
Persia, 178 et seq.; mobilization, 
1914, 278; disintegration of empire, 
367 et seq.; revolution in, 367, 457 
et seq. ; roots of revolution, 458 ; 
clash between groups, 459 ; army- 
disappears as factor in war, 462 ; 
Bolshevist regime, 463 et seq. ; 
treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 465 ; En- 
tente troops in, 466 et seq.; influ- 
ence of revolution on world politics, 
468; Soviet Eussia during 1921, 472 

Sahara, French influence over central, 

58 
St. Germain, treaty of, 382; and 
world power, 407 et seq.; based 
upon illusions, 413-15 
St. Lucia, British conquest of, 65 
San Eemo Conference, 1920, 451, 549- 

51 
San Stef ano. Treaty of, 48 
Sardinia, in Crimean War, 43 
Scandinavians as pioneer explorers, 10 
Sebastopol, siege of, 43 
"Secondary States," overseas pos- 
sessions of (1815-1922), 474 et 
seq. 
Sehegal, French colony, 57 
Sepoy mutiny in India, 45, 74 
Serbia, independence recognized, 1878, 
49 ; Austro-Hungarian ultimatum 
to, 1914, 275; Austria-Hungary de- 
clares war against, 276 
Serbians, revolt against Turkey in 

1804, 26 
Sevres, treaty of, and world politics, 

428 et seq. 
Seychelles, British conquest of, 65 
Shantung, Germans acquire control of, 

201 
Siam, French take territory from, 62 
Siberia, 114; colonization of eastern, 

118 
Singapore, leased by Great Britain, 

76 
Smuts. General, protest against treaty 
of Versailles, 400-1 



South Africa, under British rule, 69 

Spa Conference, 1920, 553 

Spain, sea power of, broken by battle 
of Trafalgar, 14; loss of American 
colonies, 24-5; loses Philippines and 
other eastern colonies, 169; over- 
seas possessions after treaty of 
Paris, 478-9 

Spanish-American war, 332, 338 

Spanish colonies in America, revolt of, 
24 

Steam-engines, manufacture begun by 
Watt and Boulton, 21 

Steam power, employed for transpor- 
tation, 22 

Steamships, first use of, 22 

Subject peoples of Central Europe, 
policy of Entente nations in regard 
to reorganization of, 371 et seq. 

Sudan, the, British administrative 
control over, 79 

Suez canal, conceived and financed by 
France, 53 ; British secure control 
of, 85 

Syria, conquered by Ibrahim Pasha, 
27 

Tasmania, settled by British, 65 

Timbuktu, captured by France, 58 

Tongking, French protectorate over, 
61 

Trafalgar, battle of, breaks sea power 
of France and Spain, 14 

Transcaucasia, Eussia gains control of, 
116-7 

Trans-Siberian Eailway, 123 

Transvaal Eepublic, 70 

Transylvanians in union with Eu- 
mania, 375 

Trianon, treaty of, and world politics, 
416 et seq. 

Trinidad, Malta, British conquest of, 
65 

Triple Entente, the, against the Cen- 
tral Empires (1914), 272 et seq.; 
diplomacy 's attempts to prevent a 
general war, 276 et seq.; Italv's en- 
trance into the Entente (1915). 283 
et seq.; United States in coalition 
with, 358 et seq.; policy of, in re- 
organization of subject peoples of 
Central Europe, 371 et seq.'. at 
Paris Conference, intention to keep 
final decisions in their own hands, 
381-2 

Tripoli, Italian ambitions in, 234, 237- 
0; captured and annexed by Italy, 
240-1 



INDEX 



595 



Tristan de Cunha, British conquest of, 

65 
Tunisia, French conquest of, 55-6 
Turkey, revolts against, 26 et seq.; 
Eussian wars against, 1828, 1854, 
and 1877, 41 et seq.; reforms prom- 
ised in 1856 fail to materialize, 47- 
8; claims suzerainty over Tunisia, 
55; Abdul Hamid Sultan of, 99- 
100; revision of San Stefano treaty 
and, 105 et seq.; Young Turk revo- 
lution, 219 et seq.; results of Young 
Turk movement, 224-6; war with 
Italy, 240-4; Balkan war against 
(1912-1913), 254 et seq.; joins Cen- 
tral Powers in European War, 294} 
treaty of Sevres, 428 et seq. 

Union of South Africa, 478 

United States, promulgates Monroe 
Doctrine, 25; development of, 37; 
and partition of China, 143 et seq.; 
in world politics (1893-1917), 328 
et seq.; territorial acquisitions, 331- 
2; assertion of open door principle, 
332-3; building up of a merchant 
marine, 333-5; buildiug of a navy 
"second to none," 335-6; interven- 
tion in other countries, policy as to, 
336-9; and the Latin-American re- 
publics, 340 et seq.; requests Great 
Britain to arbitrate with Venezuela, 
1895, 341; specific legislative en- 
dorsement of Monroe Doctrine, 343 ; 
Spanish- American War, 344; builds 
Panama Canal, 348-9; intervention 
in Mexico, in 1914 and 1916, 350-1 ; 
acquirements and intervention in 
the West Indies, 351-3; status of 
Monroe Doctrine, 354-6 ; in the coa- 
lition against the Central Empires 
(1917-1918), 358 et seq.; protests 
to Great Britain against interfer- 
ence with American trade, 360; 
notes to Germany, 361 et seq.; de- 
clares war on Germany, 363 ; con- 
scription voted, 364; forces sent to 
France, 364; refusal of, to ratify 
the treaties of the Paris Conference 
and enter the League of Nations, 

390 et seq.; treaty fight in Senate, 

391 et seq.; war with Germany and 
Austria terminated by joint con- 
gressional resolution, July, 1921, 
395; provisions of treaty of Berlin, 
395-6; claim for expense of Ehine 



army, 897; place of, in the world 
(1920-1922), 522 et seq.; population 
of, by decades, 523 ; immigration to, 
523-7; and world trade, 527-8; ex- 
clusion from fruits of victory over 
Germany, 528-30; strongest of the 
powers, 534; and British Empire 
ought to face the future together, 
538 

Verona, Congress of, 24-5, 26 

Versailles, Treaty of, 390; and world 

politics, 399 et seq.; marks new 

stage in struggle for world power, 

403 

Vienna, Peace of, see Peace of Vienna 

I 

War criminals, provision for, in Ver- 
sailles treaty, 402 

Wars, early, localization of effects of, 
17-18 

Washington Conference and the limi- 
tation of armaments, 561 et seq.; 
objects of, -566; ratio of capital 
ships, 572 

Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842, 68 

Weltpolitilc, German, 195 et seq. 

Wilhelm II, German Emperor, 195, 
196, 204, 274 

Wilson, Woodrow, President, on 
League of Nations, 387-8; illness of, 
391; and United States Senate on 
ratification of treaty, 392 et seq. 

World politics, beginnings of, 3 et 
seq.; difference made by era of, in 
the aims of statesmanship, 52; and 
treaty of Versailles, 399 et seq. ; and 
treaty of St. Germain, 407 et seq.; 
and treaty of Trianon, 416 et seq.; 
and treaty of Neuilly, 422 et seq.; 
and treaty of Sevres, 428 et seq.; 
influence of Eussian revolution on, 
468 

World powers, rise of, 1848-1878, 30 
et seq.; steps in creation of, 35 et 
seq.; influence of Crimean War on 
rise of, 45 et seq. 

Young Turks, revolution in Turkey, 
219 et seq.; oppose Italian ambi- 
tions in Tripoli, 238 

Zanzibar, British supremacy in, 58-9 
Zollverein, German customs union, 35, 

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